b 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 
WARRE  B.  WELLS 


From   a  photograph   hy  J.  Hussell  S  Sons 


/^^^ 


THE    LIFE    OF 

JOHN  REDMOND 


BY 

WARRE  B.  WELLS 

[ISTORY  OF  THE  IRISH  F 
LOGIA,"  "the  IRISH  CO 
AND  SINN   FEIN,"   ETC. 


NEW  XaJr  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


<>^ 


COPYRIGHT.  1919, 
BY  GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

The  sources  upon  which  I  have  drawn  in  writ- 
ing this  book  are,  for  the  most  part,  acknowl- 
edged in  the  body  of  it.  I  have  found  the  char- 
acter-study, "John  Redmond,"  by  his  nephew, 
Mr.  L.  G.  Redmond-Howard,  a  handy  source  of 
summaries  and  quotations.  I  wish  to  express 
my  great  indebtedness  to  Mr.  J.  M.  Hone  ("N. 
Marlowe"),  my  collaborator  in  earlier  books,  for 
his  assistance  in  the  preparation  of  this  book. 

W.  B.  W. 


430045 


[V] 


INTRODUCTION 

THE  BACK-GROUND  OF  HISTORY 

The  publishers  of  this  book  have  suggested 
that  it  should  be  prefaced  with  a  brief  synopsis 
of  Irish  history  since  1798,  to  provide,  as  it  were, 
a  back-ground  against  which  the  life  of  John 
Redmond  may  be  set.  To  write  such  a  synopsis 
is  a  task  less  easy  than  it  might  appear.  The 
very  date  selected  as  its  starting-point  is  chal- 
lenging. It  invites  a  begging  of  the  whole  "Irish 
question."  Did  the  Rebellion  of  1798,  as  Union- 
ists assert,  justify  the  Act  of  Legislative  Union 
between  Ireland  and  Great  Britain?  Or  was  that 
Rebellion,  as  Nationalists  reply,  deliberately  pro- 
voked with  the  object  of  providing  a  specious 
pretence  of  justification  for  the  Union?  It  is,  in 
fact,  impossible  that  any  survey  of  Irish  history, 
however  brief,  should  be  taken  up  arbitrarily 
from  the  date  of  1798  without  reference  to  what 
went  before  it. 

For  the  purposes  which  we  have  in  view  here 
the  political  history  of  modern  Ireland  may  best 
be  treated  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  inter- 
action between  what  may  be  called,  in  the  most 

[vii] 


INTRODUCTION 

general  terms,  constitutional  and  revolutionary 
movements  for  Irish  reform ;  and  it  is  from  that 
point  of  view  that  I  propose  to  treat  it  in  this 
Introduction.  It  is  an  interaction  which  may  be 
traced  through  the  whole  course  of  modern  Irish 
political  history.  It  emerged  sharply  in  the  last 
years  of  John  Redmond's  life,  with  disastrous 
influence  upon  his  own  political  fortunes. 

The  name  of  John  Redmond  stands  in  the  past 
generation  for  the  constitutional  movement  for 
Irish  self-government  known  as  Home  Rule.  The 
familiar  phrase  implies  both  something  more  and 
something  less  than  mere  repeal  of  the  Act  of 
Union.  It  implies  something  less  because  the 
Irish  Parliament,  as  it  existed,  immediately  be- 
fore the  Act  of  Union,  was  technically — but  only 
technically — co-equal  in  sovereign  power  with 
the  British  Parliament.  In  1494  "Poynyng's 
Law,"  enacted  by  Henry  VII.'s  Parliament  at 
Drogheda,  made  the  Irish  Parliament — then  only 
the  Parliament  of  the  English  Pale — a  mere 
shadow,  entirely  dependent  on  the  English  King 
and  Council.  It  did  not  give  the  English  Parlia- 
ment, however,  the  power  of  legislating  for  Ire- 
land. That  power  was  finally  asserted  when,  in 
1719,  quarrels  between  the  Parliaments  culminat- 
ed in  the  Act  known  as  "the  Sixth  of  George  I.," 
which  completely  took  away  the  independence  of 

[viii] 


INTRODUCTION 

the  Irish  Parliament.  But  in  1782  this  Act  was 
repealed,  and  in  the  following  year  the  Act  of 
Renunciation  declared  that  Ireland's  right  to  be 
bound  only  by  the  laws  made  by  the  King  and 
the  Irish  Parliament  was  ''established  forever, 
and  shall  at  no  time  hereafter  be  questioned  or 
questionable.'*  "Grattan's  Parliament,"  there- 
fore, during  its  brief  existence  from  1783  down 
to  the  Act  of  Union,  enjoyed  a  technical  posi- 
tion of  sovereign  independence — a  position  to 
which  the  Home  Rule  movement  of  our  time 
made  no  claim. 

But  on  the  other  hand  Home  Rule  implies 
something  more  than  mere  repeal  of  the  Act  of 
Union;  for  the  Irish  Parliament  never  repre- 
sented the  nation,  did  not  even  represent  the 
Protestant  people,  and  was  thoroughly  corrupt. 
Since  the  Treaty  of  Limerick  which  closed  the 
War  of  the  Revolution  the  Government  of  Ire- 
land had  been  completely  in  the  hands  of  the 
small  Protestant  minority,  who  also  possessed  al- 
most the  whole  of  the  land  of  the  country  and 
held  all  the  offices  of  trust  and  emolument;  and 
this  "Protestant  ascendancy,"  as  it  was  called, 
was  confirmed  by  the  Penal  Laws  directed 
against  the  Irish  Catholics.  The  proceedings  of 
the  Irish  Parliament  and  the  political  history  of 
the  country  during  the  eighteenth  century  have 

[ix] 


INTRODUCTION 

reference  wholly  to  the  Protestant  colony.  The 
struggles  of  the  Irish  Legislature  for  independ- 
ence, culminating  in  Grattan's  Parliament  of 
1782,  were  the  struggles  of  the  Protestants:  the 
Catholics  had  no  political  existence,  and  could 
have  no  part  in  any  of  these  contests.  The  Home 
Rule  movement,  of  course,  postulates  a  ParHa- 
ment  elected  by  equal,  direct,  and  secret  suffrage, 
together  with  an  Executive  responsible  to  it, 
which  the  Executive  in  the  days  of  Grattan's 
Parliament  was  not. 

The  efforts  of  Grattan  and  Flood  and  their 
"Patriot  Party"  to  secure  legislative  independ- 
ence, it  is  germane  to  the  thesis  of  this  Introduc- 
tion to  observe,  were  crowned  with  success  only 
when  they  were  backed  by  the  power  of  the  Irish 
Volunteers,  first  formed  about  1779  after  the 
exploits  of  American  Privateers  off  the  Irish 
coasts  suggested  the  possibility  of  foreign  inva- 
sion. It  was  to  this  period  that  Mr.  Redmond 
referred  in  his  famous  speech  in  the  House  of 
Commons  on  the  outbreak  of  War.  The  "Pa- 
triot Party"  secured  legislative  independence 
with  the  power  of  the  Volunteers  behind  them. 
They  failed  to  secure  redress  of  the  three  out- 
standing questions  without  which  that  success 
was  barren — Parliamentary  reform ;  the  removal 
of  the  restrictions  imposed  on  Irish  commerce; 

[X] 


INTRODUCTION 

and  Catholic  emancipation.  They  failed  because 
the  leaders  of  the  Volunteers  shrank  from  chal- 
lenging a  conflict  with  the  Government.  Consti- 
tutional action  proved  impotent  to  secure  re- 
dress of  grievances ;  and  the  Volunteers,  deserted 
by  their  leaders,  formed  democratic  associations 
and  drifted  towards  revolutionary  action.  There 
is  a  constant  recurrence  of  such  developments 
in  Irish  political  history. 

The  Rebellion  of  1798  arose  out  of  the  exas- 
peration and  desperation  induced  by  the  failure 
of  constitutional  action  to  relieve  the  numerous 
causes  of  distress  and  discontent — the  penal  laws 
against  the  Catholics;  the  commercial  restric- 
tions imposed  and  maintained  in  England's  in- 
terests which  strangled  Irish  industry  and  com- 
merce; the  extortionate  system  of  "rack-rents" 
under  which  farmers  held  their  land  from  absen- 
tee landlords.  Wolfe  Tone,  Lord  Edward  Fitz- 
gerald, and  its  other  leaders  drew  their  inspira- 
tion largely  from  the  French  Revolution.  The 
outbreak  of  the  Rebellion  was  precipitated  by 
the  excesses  of  the  soldiers  billeted  on  the  people 
throughout  the  country.  It  was  marked  on  the 
insurgent  side  by  many  atrocious  incidents,  and 
it  was  suppressed  by  the  Government  with  the 
utmost  ferocity. 

The  suppression  of  the  Rebellion  was  followed 
[xi] 


INTRODUCTION 

by  the  passing  of  the  Act  of  Union,  justified  by 
Pitt  on  the  plea  of  "military  necessity."  Its 
passage  through  the  Irish  Parliament  was  se- 
cured by  wholesale  bribery  and  corruption.  The 
proprietors  of  "rotten  boroughs" — over  200  out 
of  300  in  all — were  bought  with  a  sum  aggregat- 
ing one  and  a  quarter  million  pounds,  which  was 
added,  with  a  supreme  touch  of  cynicism,  to  the 
Irish  national  debt;  to  purchase  the  votes  of  in- 
dividual members  and  the  favour  of  certain  in- 
fluential outsiders,  numbers  of  peerages  were 
created;  and  there  were  besides  great  numbers 
of  bribes  in  the  shape  of  preferments,  pensions, 
and  direct  cash.  So  perished  the  corrupt  Irish 
Parliament  in  an  orgy  of  corruption  in  the  Act 
of  Union,  which  came  into  force  on  January  ist, 
1 801.  The  articles  of  Union  placed  all  subjects 
of  the  United  Kingdom  under  the  same  regula- 
tions as  to  trade  and  commerce ;  but  the  promise 
of  Catholic  emancipation  was  not  fulfilled. 

Apart  from  the  futile  insurrection  of  Emmet 
in  1803,  no  real  movement  for  repeal,  constitu- 
tional or  revolutionary,  made  its  appearance  for 
a  full  generation  after  the  Act  of  Union.  At 
this  period  the  country  was  in  a  deplorable  state. 
The  conclusion  of  the  Napoleonic  Wars  was  fol- 
lowed by  stagnation  in  trade  and  great  distress ; 
the  people  lost  all  hope  of  relief ;  there  were  secret 

[xii] 


INTRODUCTION 

societies;  and  outrages  were  frequent.  In  1805 
Grattan  became  a  member  of  the  United  Kingdom 
Parliament,  and  devoted  himself  almost  exclu- 
sively to  the  cause  of  Irish  Catholic  emancipa- 
tion. At  his  death  in  1820,  however,  emancipa- 
tion was  still  withheld. 

It  was  ultimately  achieved  chiefly  through  the 
agency  of  the  Catholic  Association,  founded  in 
1823  by  Daniel  O'Connell,  "the  Liberator"  (who 
had  already  come  into  prominence  in  Ireland  as 
an  advocate  of  emancipation),  and  by  Richard 
Lalor  Shiel.  Its  expenses  were  defrayed  chiefly 
by  a  subscription  from  the  people  of  a  penny  a 
week,  known  as  "Catholic  rent,"  and  it  was  the 
means  of  establishing  a  free  Press  and  creating 
a  healthy  public  opinion.  The  association  was 
frequently  suppressed  by  the  Government  and 
as  often  reconstructed  with  great  astuteness  by 
O'Connell.  Finally  the  Clare  election,  success- 
fully contested  by  O'Connell  with  the  object  of 
bringing  home  to  the  British  people  the  absurd- 
ity of  disfranchising  a  constituency  because  the 
chosen  member  refused  to  take  an  oath  that  his 
own  religion  was  false,  aroused  sympathy  all 
through  England  for  the  Irish  Catholics.  The 
Government,  thoroughly  alarmed  by  the  prepara- 
tions of  the  Catholic  Association  to  return  Cath- 
olic members  throughout  Ireland,  passed  Catho- 

[xiiil 


INTRODUCTION 

lie  emancipation  in  1829  after  Wellington  had 
declared  in  the  House  of  Lords  that  the  alterna- 
tives were  emancipation  or  civil  war. 

O'Connell  may  be  said  to  have  founded  in  Ire- 
land the  system  of  peaceful,  persevering,  popu- 
lar agitation  against  political  grievances,  keep- 
ing within  the  letter  of  the  law  but  not  within  its 
spirit.  "Monster  meetings"  were  an  outstanding 
feature  of  an  agitation  constitutional  in  aim  but 
rather  revolutionary  in  method.  After  the  pass- 
age of  emancipation  O'Connell  continued  his  agi- 
tation on  the  same  lines  for  repeal.  His  revival 
of  it  in  1830  coincided  with  the  outbreak  of  the 
"tithe  war,"  in  which  a  general  movement  of  the 
Catholic  peasantry  arose  against  the  payment  of 
tithes  for  the  upkeep  of  the  established  Protes- 
tant Church  and  many  fatal  encounters  took 
place  between  peasants  and  police.  The  repeal 
agitation — which  had  existed  ineffectively  since 
1810 — came  to  a  head  in  1840  when  O'Connell 
founded  the  Repeal  Association  and  organised  a 
great  series  of  "monster  meetings" — at  one  of 
which,  held  at  Tara,  a  quarter  of  a  million  peo- 
ple were  estimated  to  be  present — during  the  fol- 
lowing years.  Finally  in  October,  1843,  the  Gov- 
ernment "proclaimed"  a  "monster  meeting"  at 
Clontarf,  near  Dublin.  O'Connell  did  not  take 
up  the  Government's  challenge  and  dispersed  the 

[xiv] 


INTRODUCTION 

meeting;  he  was,  nevertheless,  arrested,  tried, 
and  convicted,  but  soon  released  on  a  point  of 
law. 

O'Connell's  action  in  connection  with  the  Clon- 
tarf  "monster  meeting"  virtually  ended  the  Re- 
peal agitation.  A  number  of  his  younger  follow- 
ers, losing  faith  in  his  method,  separated  from 
him  and  formed  the  "Young  Ireland  Party," 
which,  by  contrast  with  O'Connell's  "Old  Ireland 
Party,"  an  almost  exclusively  Catholic  organisa- 
tion, aimed  at  embracing  the  whole  people  of  Ire- 
land. One  of  its  most  brilliant,  and  most  violent, 
members  was  John  Mitchel,  an  Ulster  Protestant. 
O'Connell  died  at  Genoa  on  his  way  to  Rome  in 
1846,  when  his  policy  had  been  largely  superseded 
by  that  of  the  Young  Irelanders.  This  policy 
tended  more  and  more  towards  revolutionary 
doctrines.  It  was  given  an  immense  stimulus  by 
the  great  potato  famine  of  1846  and  1847,  during 
which  the  people  died  by  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  starvation  and  hunger-famine  while  day  after 
day  corn  enough  to  feed  the  whole  country  was 
exported  in  ship-loads,  with  the  peasantry  dying 
of  hunger.  In  1848  the  Young  Irelanders  deter- 
mined to  attempt  revolution.  The  Government, 
however,  was  prepared.  Mitchel,  Smith  O'Brien, 
Meagher,  and  the  other  leaders  were  arrested 
and  sentenced  to  transportation ;  and  the  Young 

[XV] 


INTRODUCTION 

Ireland  movement  collapsed  in  what  has  been 
aptly  called  a  "swift,  tiny,  and  impossible  appeal 
to  the  sword." 

The  movement — essentially  a  "literary"  move- 
ment— had  for  a  time  infused  new  life  and  en- 
ergy into  Irish  Nationalism;  but  the  suppression 
of  the  movement  following  upon  the  exhaustion 
of  the  famine  left  it  for  some  years  at  a  very  low 
ebb.  About  1862  James  Stephens  founded  the 
Society  of  the  Fenian  Brotherhood,  a  secret  oath- 
bound  society,  with  the  object  of  bringing  about 
the  independence  of  Ireland  by  force  of  arms. 
This  new  movement  issued  in  1867  in  another 
rising,  which  was  easily  suppressed,  and  in  dyna- 
mite outrages  in  England  and  Ireland,  Fenian- 
ism,  however,  survived  the  suppression  of  the 
rising  as  an  active  agent  in  Irish  political  life. 

The  failure  of  the  Fenian  movement  was  not 
absolute.  It  was  largely  responsible  for  Glad- 
stone's attempt  at  reforms  in  Ireland,  especially, 
in  1869,  the  disestablishment  of  the  Irish  Prot- 
estant Church,  which  was  shown  in  Parliament 
to  have  been  unable  to  carry  out  the  intention  for 
which  it  was  originally  established — the  conver- 
sion of  the  Irish  Catholics.  The  disestablishment 
of  the  Protestant  Church  in  turn  contributed  in- 
directly to  the  establishment  of  the  Home  Rule 
movement,  with  which  many  prominent  Protest- 

[xvi] 


INTRODUCTION 

ants  associated  themselves  in  protest  against  the 
action  of  the  Imperial  Parliament  in  connection 
with  their  Church. 

The  term  "Home  Rule'*  was  coined  by  Isaac 
Butt,  perhaps  the  most  gifted  intellectually  of  the 
Irish  leaders  of  the  nineteenth  century — a  great 
advocate,  a  philosopher,  a  highly  educated  man 
of  much  personal  charm,  loose  in  morals,  always 
in  debt.  He  had  been  a  Unionist  and  an  oppo- 
nent of  O'Connell's  Repeal  movement;  while  still 
a  Unionist  he  defended  the  Fenian  prisoners.  His 
Home  Rule  movement,  established  in  1873,  is  im- 
portant as  marking  the  end  of  the  idea  of  simple 
Repeal.  Before  his  time  there  had  been  some 
discussion  of  Federalism  as  an  alternative  to  Re- 
peal. Home  Rule  as  he  conceived  it  seems  to  have 
been  a  sort  of  compromise  between  the  two; 
while,  so  far  as  Butt  was  concerned,  not  neces- 
sarily impairing  the  supremacy  of  the  Imperial 
Parliament,  it  did  not  necessarily  propose  a  fed- 
eral system  (though  Butt  himself  personally  fa- 
voured a  United  Kingdom  federalism).  The 
contrast  between  O'Connell  and  Butt  is  notable. 
Both  professed  a  decided  loyalty  to  the  Empire 
together  with  devotion  to  the  rights  of  property. 
The  former,  however,  was  an  agitator  constitu- 
tional in  aim  but  scarcely  in  action ;  the  latter  was 
constitutional  both  in  aim  and  action.  Butt,  in 
[xvii] 


INTRODUCTION 

whose  movement  John  Redmond's  father  played 
a  part,  proposed  to  convert  English  parties  to 
Home  Rule  by  reason. 

Butt's  Home  Rule  movement — chiefly  com- 
posed of  gentry  and  professional  men — is  impor- 
tant as  marking  a  stage  in  the  evolution  of  Irish 
political  ideas.  It  achieved,  however,  little  prac- 
tical result  in  itself.  The  driving- force  of  eco- 
nomic discontent  needed  to  be  added  to  the  aspira- 
tion for  self-government  before  great  progress 
was  to  be  made.  This  combination  was  achieved 
when,  in  1879,  Charles  Stewart  Parnell,  a  young 
Irish  squire,  was  elected  leader  of  the  Irish  Party, 
immediately  after  the  formation  by  Michael 
Davitt  of  the  Land  League,  which  was  subse- 
quently to  exercise  great  influence  in  the  country 
and  in  Parliament.  Davitt  was  a  thorough-going 
democrat,  who  believed  in  the  nationalisation  of 
the  land  and  in  other  theories  of  the  Socialist 
State.  The  winter  of  the  same  year  brought  a 
great  failure  of  crops  in  Ireland,  leading  to  a  ter- 
rible distress  among  the  tenant-farmers. 

Thus  everything  conspired  to  encourage  the 
success  of  what  was  called  "The  New  Depart- 
ure,'* namely  an  alliance  of  the  most  embittered 
extremists  with  the  left  or  Parnellite  wing  of  the 
parliamentary  Home  Rulers.  Idealists  among 
the  Fenians  like  John  O'Leary  who  still  believed 
[xviii] 


INTRODUCTION 

in  open  insurrection  refused  their  support  to  the 
Land  League,  which  on  the  other  hand  appealed 
to  large  masses  of  the  more  practical  kind  of 
revolutionists,  especially  in  America.  Devoy,  the 
Irish-American  leader,  declared,  however,  that 
the  real  object  of  the  "New  Departure"  was  the 
recovery  of  national  independence.  This,  too, 
was  Parnell's  view,  although  he  preferred  to  bor- 
row Butt's  more  ambiguous  phrase  of  Home 
Rule. 

But,  whatever  might  be  the  mixed  purposes  of 
the  combination,  it  was  clear  in  1880  that  the 
Irish  people  had  once  again  definitely  abandoned 
arms  for  policy.  The  character  of  the  period 
with  which  the  subject  of  this  book  was  identi- 
fied could  not  be  better  summed  up  than  it  was 
in  a  recent  manifesto  of  the  Irish  Party  (October 
nth,  1918).  It  is  the  period  of  "the  policy  which 
was  laid  before  Ireland  in  1878,  under  the  name 
of  the  New  Departure,  put  into  practice  under 
Parnell  and  Davitt,  and  which,  under  their  lead- 
ership, secured  the  support  of  all  that  was  best  in 
the  ranks  of  the  physical  force  men  of  '67,  and 
forged  for  Ireland  the  most  formidable  and  ef- 
fective weapon  placed  in  her  hand  throughout 
the  whole  of  her  history,  set  free  the  land  of  Ire- 
land, destroyed  the  long  impregnable  fortress  of 
landlordism,  extracted  right  after  right  from  suc- 

[xix] 


INTRODUCTION 

cessive  British  Governments,  and  finally,  under 
the  leadership  of  John  Redmond,  removed  the 
British  opposition  to  Irish  freedom  and  brought 
Ireland  to  the  very  threshold  of  final  victory." 


M 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER 

I  The  Leader  and  the  Man 

II  Ancestry  and  Youth     . 

III  Early  Political  Life    . 

IV  The  Mantle  of  Parnell 
V  Towards  Home  Rule     . 

VI  The  Home  Rule  Bill     . 

VII  Redmond  and  Sinn  Fein 

VIII  Redmond  and  Ulster     . 

IX  The  War  and  Redmond's  Choice 

X  A  Clouded  Ending   .... 


FAOB 

25 

44 

59 

78 

104 

134 
165 
189 

215 
248 


[xxll 


ILLUSTRATIONS 
John  Redmond,  1914 Frontispiece 

From  a  photograph  by  J.  Russell  &  Sons 

PAGE 

John  Redmond  as  Hamlet  in  a  Students' 

Performance  at  Clongowes    ...       52 

By  permission  of  the  Rev.  Father  Ryan 

John  Redmond  Fishing  in  County  Wicklow     100 
At  the  Clongowes  Centenary,  1914  .      .     180 

John  Redmond  with  his  brother  William  (on  the 
left)  and  his  son  William  Archer  Redmond. 

John  Redmond  Reviewing  National  Vol- 
unteers in  Phoenix  Park       .      ,     .     228 


[  xxiit  ] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 


THE   LIFE  OF 
JOHN  REDMOND 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  LEADER  AND  THE  MAN 

THE  life-Story  of  John  Redmond  is  the  record 
of  one  of  the  most  remarkable  paradoxes  in 
the  political  history  of  the  United  Kingdom  in 
modern  times.  No  field  of  study,  perhaps,  offers 
more  pitfalls  than  Irish  politics  in  the  making  of 
broad  generalisations.  But,  expressed  briefly  and 
in  the  most  general  terms,  and  without  any  of 
those  necessary  reserves  and  qualifications  which 
will  be  given  their  due  weight  in  the  proper  place 
in  the  course  of  this  narrative,  the  paradox  of 
John  Redmond's  career  may  be  stated  thus.  It 
was  his  mission  in  political  life  to  recommend  to 
the  British  democracy  by  constitutional  means 
the  Irish  demand  for  national  self-government. 
He  brought  that  mission  to  the  immediate  eve  of 
success.  He  brought  it  to  the  immediate  eve  of 
success  so  far  as  the  British  democracy  was  con- 

[26] 


...........THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

f  cerned ;  and  simultaneously  he  found  the  whole 
basis  of  the  constitutional  claim  largely  repudi- 
ated by  the  Irish  people.  He  died,  a  convinced 
constitutionalist,  at  a  moment  when  the  consti- 
tutional movement,  and  with  it  his  hope  of  a 
peaceful  settlement  of  the  Anglo-Irish  quarrel, 
seemed  to  be  submerged  in  a  relapse  into  revolu- 
tionary methods. 

To  write  of  the  life  of  John  Redmond  is  neces- 
sarily,  in  effect,  to  write  of  the  history  of  Irish 
politics  during  the  past  generation;  and  politics, 
the  sum  of  the  conflict  of  human  passions,  noble 
and  ignoble,  the  movement  of  tedencies  in  mass 
psychology,  present  themselves  to  the  historical 
student  with  a  certain  aspect  of  impersonality. 
But  in  the  record  of  the  paradox  of  John  Red- 
mond's career,  it  is  apparent,  we  are  dealing,  es- 
sentially with  the  materials  of  a  personal  trag- 
edy— a  personal  tragedy  of  its  kind  scarcely  less 
poignant  than  that  of  his  predecessor  in  the  Irish 
national  leadership,  Charles  Stewart  Parnell.  One 
may  very  properly,  therefore,  preface  the  record 
of  his  public  life  with  some  study  of  what  man- 
ner of  man  it  was  to  whom  this  tragedy  befell. 

A  very  brief  and  superficial  review,  at  the  out- 
set, of  his  political  career,  with  one  or  two  out- 
standing incidents  in  it,  and  of  the  political  ma- 
terial with  which  he  had  to  deal,  will  give  us  some 

[26] 


THE  LEADER  AND  THE  MAN 

insight  into  the  personal  character  of  the  man. 
John  Redmond  was  not  an  initiator  of  political 
action.  He  introduced  no  new  methods,  either  of 
agitation  at  home  or  of  strategy  at  Westminster, 
but  endeavoured  rather  to  perfect  the  system 
which  he  had  inherited  from  Parnell.  It  was 
ever  his  proudest  boast  that  he  stood  for  the  pol- 
icy of  Parnell.  Parnell's  methods  were  (a)  pas- 
sive resistance  in  Ireland  against  certain  laws, 
particularly  those  relating  to  the  land,  which  na- 
tional sentiment  regarded  as  inimical,  and  (b)  ob- 
struction in  the  British  Parliament.  The  British 
Government  broke  the  weapon  of  obstruction  by 
altering  the  parliamentary  rules  of  procedure, 
whereupon  Parnell  made  it  his  chief  aim  to  se- 
cure the  balance  of  power  at  Westminster,  argu- 
ing that  one  of  the  two  great  English  parties 
would  for  the  sake  of  power  purchase  the  Irish 
vote  by  the  offer  of  Home  Rule. 

Mr.  Redmond,  as  we  know,  did  acquire  the  bal- 
ance of  power  in  19 lo,  with  the  result  that  the 
Liberal  Party,  which  after  its  return  to  office  by 
a  huge  independent  majority  in  1905  had  ignored 
Home  Rule,  immediately  attacked  the  veto  of  the 
House  of  Lords  and  proposed  a  measure  of  Irish 
self-government.  Sinn  Feiners  have  asserted  that 
Redmond  "betrayed"  the  policy  of  Parnell.  They 
urge  that  Parnell,  had  he  lived,  would  soon  have 

[27] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

abandoned  Westminster,  and  quote  a  speech 
which  he  dehvered  at  Limerick  in  November, 
1880.  Parnell  then  said  that  he  did  not  beUeve  in 
the  permanence  of  an  Irish  Party  at  Westminster, 
for  ''sooner  or  later  the  influence  which  every 
English  Government  had  at  its  command  could 
sap  the  best  of  Irish  parties."  John  Redmond  did, 
however,  succeed  in  maintaining  the  independ- 
ence of  the  Nationalist  Parliamentary  Party,  and, 
in  effect,  he  disproved  Parnell's  doubts  of  Irish 
stability.  In  1910 — thirty  years  after  Parnell's 
speech  at  Limerick — an  independent  Irish  party 
held  the  British  party  system  at  its  mercy  and 
was  able  to  force  the  Government  not  only  to  put 
Home  Rule  in  the  forefront  of  its  programme, 
but  to  demand  from  the  King  himself  guarantees 
against  obstructive  action  on  the  part  of  the 
House  of  Lords. 

Yet  when  he  died,  seven  years  later.  Home 
Rule,  though  an  Act,  seemed  further  than  ever 
from  being  a  fact.    Where,  then,  had  been  Mr. 
Redmond's  error  of  judgment?    The  Irish  Party 
under  his  leadership  could  show  a  record  of  defi- 
nite Parliamentary  achievement  unequalled  by 
any  other  minority  party  in  the  House  of  Com- 
I  mons.    But  Parliamentary  achievement  was  not 
/  enough,  and  what  John  Redmond,  like  other  poli- 
^  ticians,  failed  to  realise  was  that  the  machine 

[28] 


THE  LEADER  AND  THE  MAN 

itself  had  broken  down.  Political  democracy  in 
the  years  1912-1914  was  an  impolite  fiction.  Mr. 
Redmond  might  dominate  Parliament;  but  what 
was  the  use  of  that  when  people  were  losing  their 
habit  of  obedience  and  respect  towards  Parlia- 
ment? Such  an  event  as  a  "loyalist"  insurrec- 
tion against  law  like  the  Ulster  Unionist  move- 
ment would  have  been  inconceivable  in  the  United 
Kingdom  of  Parnell's  days.  There  was  more 
than  a  little  truth  in  the  Sinn  Feiners'  contention 
of  the  futility  of  Parliamentarism.  But  the  fault 
did  not  lie,  as  they  alleged,  in  any  particular  cor- 
ruption of  the  Irish  representatives.  John  Red- 
mond's own  position  was  one  of  the  greatest  hon- 
our, and  he  kept  aloof  more  than  any  contem- 
porary politician  from  the  intrigues  of  the  place- 
hunters. 

Mr.  Redmond  almost  to  the  end  maintained 
Parnell's  idea  of  the  need  of  keeping  Irishmen 
together  even  at  some  cost  of  apparent  inconsist- 
ency. To  different  audiences  he  could  talk  dif- 
ferently. When  in  America,  for  instance,  he 
would  not  estrange  the  support  of  the  extremists 
from  himself  by  laying  stress  on  his  own  belief 
that  th^  Irish  national  claim  might  be  satisfied 
within  the  Empire.  What  he  aimed  at  was  Home 
Rule,  and,  if  Republicans  chose  to  assist  a  Home 
Rule  movement,  should  he  reject  their  aid?    He 

[29] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

agreed  with  Parnell  that  no  man  may  set  bounds 
to  the  march  of  a  nation.  In  England  he  de- 
clared that  separation  was  impossible  and  unde- 
sirable. 

Was  there  here  any  real  inconsistency?  That 
no  man  may  set  bounds  to  the  march  of  a  nation 
is,  in  reality,  a  truism.  Mr.  Redmond's  personal 
opinion  was  that  Irishmen,  once  they  possessed 
a  wide  measure  of  self-government,  would  be 
happy  in  their  place  within  the  Empire.  Other 
Irishmen — supporters  of  the  parliamentary 
movement  too — looked  on  Home  Rule  as  a  step- 
ping stone  towards  separation.  It  would  have 
been  foolish  of  Mr.  Redmond  to  have  rejected  the 
friendship  of  such  Irishmen  simply  because  he 
differed  from  them  as  to  what  might  happen  to 
an  Ireland  of  the  future.  Of  this,  however,  we 
may  be  certain — namely,  that  Mr.  Redmond,  once 
self-government  had  been  established  by  constitu- 
tional means  and  agreement  with  England,  would 
have  stood  apart  from,  or  indeed  firmly  resisted, 
all  attempts  to  move  in  the  separatist  direction. 
His  attitude  on  the  war  is  a  final  proof  of  this. 

In  August,  1 9 14,  John  Redmond  broke  with 
the  separatists  once  and  for  all.  Principle  and 
expediency  met  in  a  fatal  clash,  and  he  knew  it 
would  be  no  longer  possible  for  him  to  work  with 
men  who  believed  that  the  reduction  of  the  Brit- 

[30] 


THE  LEADER  AND  THE  MAN 

ish  Empire  was  an  Irish  interest.  The  issue  was 
forced,  as  it  were,  prematurely  and  in  circum- 
stances that  were  unfavourable  to  Mr.  Redmond. 
Could  he  have  come  to  Ireland  in  August,  1914, 
to  be  Prime  Minister  of  a  new  Irish  Parliament — 
his  own  achievement — and  to  conduct  recruiting 
on  Irish  lines,  the  magnitude  of  his  supremacy  as 
against  the  separatists  would  not  have  been  in 
doubt.  We  know  how  far  otherwise  were  the  cir- 
cumstances in  which  he  declared  the  true  faith 
which  was  in  him.  His  speech  in  the  House  of 
Commons  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  when  he 
offered  Irish  support  to  the  Government,  was  de- 
livered entirely  on  his  own  initiative.  He  acted 
then  under  stress  of  personal  emotion  and  even — 
so  we  have  been  told — without  consulting  his 
principal  colleague.  Whoever  reads  the  story  of 
John  Redmond's  political  career  will  observe  that 
there  were  several  occasions  on  which,  for  the 
sake  of  maintaining  Irish  unity,  he  compromised 
with  his  inner  natural  inclinations  and  adopted 
opinions  which  were  not  entirely  his  own.  But 
his  action  in  regard  to  the  European  struggle 
never  varied,  and,  the  stronger  his  opponents  of 
the  Sinn  Fein  party  became,  the  stiffer  grew  his 
own  attitude  of  loyalty  to  the  British  cause. 

At  the  same  time  he  forcibly  resented  what 
seemed  to  him  to  be  an  inexcusable  stupidity  of 

[81] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

the  British  war-policy  in  Ireland.  "John  Red- 
mond," says  an  English  friend,  "broke  his  heart 
because  he  tried  to  stand  between  the  two  forces. 
His  passion  for  the  war  against  Germany  was 
absolutely  sincere.  It  was  partly  the  passion  of 
a  Catholic  who  saw  a  Catholic  country  being  rav- 
aged and  Catholics  being  slaughtered  by  a  great 
Protestant  Power.  It  was  partly  the  sympathy 
of  a  chivalric  man  for  a  little  nation.  In  any  case 
no  one  who  knew  him  could  doubt  that  it  was 
fiercely  honest  and  passionate — so  passionate  that 
for  the  moment  he  was  carried  off  his  feet  and 
carried  out  of  that  calm,  calculating  mood  which 
had  hitherto  made  him  infinitely  cautious  in  all 
his  dealings  with  Englishmen.  For  once  he  let 
himself  go.  He  trusted  England.  He  showed 
what  all  his  friends  knew,  that  at  heart  he  was  a 
simple-minded  man." 

But,  this  intimate  observer  adds,  "complete  as 
his  confidence  was  in  British  sympathy  at  that 
high  moment,  absolute  as  was  his  trust,  just  so 
deep  and  so  wrathful  was  his  passion  of  resent- 
ment when  England  failed  to  respond.  In  Octo- 
ber, 1916,  some  time  after  the  Irish  Rebellion,  I 
spent  a  long  morning  with  him  at  his  flat,  and 
heard  from  his  mouth,  in  the  form  of  a  criticism 
of  the  War  Office  in  its  dealings  with  Ireland 
since  19 14,  one  of  the  most  scathing  indictments 

[32] 


THE  LEADER  AND  THE  MAN 

of  our  rule  in  Ireland  that,  I  suppose,  he  ever  ut- 
tered. He  repeated  this  indictment  in  the  House 
of  Commons  some  little  time  afterwards,  but  in 
a  far  more  moderate  form.  In  private  life  he 
gave  full  rein  to  his  vehement  and  passionate 
anger.  As  I  listened  to  his  full  and  detailed  nar- 
rative of  the  follies  of  the  War  Office  in  dealing 
with  that  great  Irish  offer  to  help  us  in  the  Ger- 
man War,  I  wondered  whether  in  the  history  of 
Great  Britain  so  great  an  opportunity  had  ever 
been  so  foolishly  thrown  away.  It  was  all  very 
well  for  British  Ministers  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons afterwards  to  condemn  the  blunders  that 
had  been  perpetrated.  But  the  pity  of  it  was  that 
it  was  Mr.  John  Redmond  who  had  to  bear  the 
whole  penalty.  For  he,  at  that  moment,  stood 
between  England  and  Ireland  as  the  one  states- 
man who  took  on  his  shoulders  all  the  crimes  and 
follies  of  both."  ^ 

*  Mr.  Harold  Spender,  Contemporary  Review,  April,  1918.  In 
regard  to  other  aspects  of  Mr.  Redmond's  leadership  Mr.  Spender 
points  out  very  truly  that  he  was  selected  as  a  leader  of  the  con- 
stitutional type,  subject  to  the  advice  of  the  Irish  party  and  the 
national  organisation.  "Every  act  of  policy  was  discussed  by  the 
Irish  party.  Every  speaker  was  chosen  by  the  party.  That  party 
could  by  its  decision  even  impose  a  collective  vow  of  silence  on 
the  whole  body.  It  was  the  best  disciplined  party  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  and  the  leader  was  disciplined  also."  This  is  a 
good  answer  to  the  common  criticism  of  Redmond  that  he  did 
not  display  "Parnell's  strength."  He  had  not  been  intended  to 
do  so.  Mr.  Hugh  Law,  M.P.,  in  the  Dublin  Review  (July,  1918) 
also  lays  stress  on  the  constitutional  character  of  his  leadership. 

[  33  ] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

John  Redmond's  personal  life  was  a  quiet  and 
uneventful  one.  It  was,  in  spite  of  the  deeply 
felt  loss  of  his  first  wife,  a  happy  one  on  the 
whole.  He  had  all  the  Irish  domestic  virtues,  and 
his  second  marriage,  like  his  first,  was  one  of  the 
most  devoted  kind.  His  best  friends  were  drawn 
from  among  his  relatives.  He  delighted  in  the 
ardent  character  and  irrepressible  humour  of  his 
famous  brother  "Willie,"  who  pre-deceased  him 
by  a  few  months  only.  He  and  his  brother  Wil- 
liam had  married,  when  they  were  still  almost 
boys,  two  Australian  sisters.  His  son,  who  is 
now  a  Captain  in  the  Army  and  also  Member  of 
Parliament  for  Waterford  City,  was  a  great 
source  of  pride.  He  greatly  resembles  the  father 
in  appearance  and  inherits  the  political  interest 
of  the  family.  John  Redmond  had  three  children 
by  his  first  marriage,  none  by  his  second.  One 
daughter  recently  died  in  America.  The  second, 
Johanna,  who  is  married  to  Mr.  Max  Green  of 
the  Irish  Prisons  Board,  is  greatly  talented  as 
an  author. 

In  early  manhood  John  Redmond  was  account- 
ed handsome.  To  the  end  of  his  life  he  remained 
what  the  Irish  call  "a  fine  figure  of  a  man."  The 
red-haired  Celt  and  the  blond  Scandinavian  had 
evidently  contributed  largely  to  his  making.  One 
could  not  mistake  him  for  anything  but  an  Irish- 

[34] 


THE  LEADER  AND  THE  MAN 

man,  and  yet  his  was  not  a  type  of  face  that  is 
particularly  characteristic  either  of  the  East  or 
West  of  Ireland.  There  was  certainly  nothing  in 
him  of  the  Iberian  of  the  Western  Coast,  whose 
race  is  "Mediterranean."  He  had,  however,  the 
prominent  light  blue  eyes  and  the  somewhat 
florid  complexion  that  are  found  commonly 
enough  in  the  English  Pale.  His  mouth  was  firm 
and  his  brow  expressed  nobility.  Like  his  brother 
he  conveyed  an  impression  of  the  picturesque 
rather  than  of  regular  beauty.  Yet  he  dressed 
according  to  the  conventions  of  society,  and  al- 
ways with  great  care.  His  neatness  was  un-Irish 
and  distinguished  him  from  the  majority  of  his 
colleagues,  who  rather  tended  to  seek  after  a 
conspiratorial  effect.  He  was,  indeed,  one  of  the 
most  fastidious  of  men;  and  his  instinctive  re- 
pugnance to  physical  contact  with  persons  not 
well-groomed  stood  in  curious  contrast  with  his 
dependence  on  a  democratic  constituency  com- 
prising all  sorts  and  conditions. 

His  friends  were  mostly  chosen  from  his  early 
political  associates,  and,  at  the  end  of  his  life,  he 
was  a  somewhat  solitary  figure.  Many  of  his  old 
comrades  at  arms — the  men  who  had  fought  with 
him  through  the  Parnell  split — had  passed  away, 
and  his  own  continued  absorption  in  politics  had 
not  been  favourable  to  the  cultivation  of  non- 

[95] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

professional  fnendshqis.  Indeed,  he  denied  him- 
self much  for  the  sake  of  the  cause.  For,  al> 
tixiQgh  not  a  tremendously  hard  worker — his  at- 
titode  towards  details  was  always  a  rather  in- 
dolent one — he  was  extremdy  regular  in  his  hah- 
fts  and  never  acted  Pamell's  role  of  the  roi 
famSamL  Except  for  short  spells  in  the  antnmn 
recesses  he  was  never  out  of  touch  widi  political 
affairs;  he  was  the  most  ponctnal  of  men,  and, 
when  in  London  daring  the  ParliamoitaTy  ses- 
sions, there  was  hardly  a  night  on  which  he  dined 
outside  of  the  House  of  Commons. 

Yet,  as  one  of  his  yoongcr  ooOeagnes,  Mr. 
Hi:^  Law,  has  written,  John  Redmcmd  '^svas  no 
ascetk."  '^e  was  a  man  to  whom  the  achieve- 
ment of  tiie  costomary  amhitioiK  of  men  offered 
attractions.  He  liked  good  wine  and  the  many 
thii^  that  money  can  bay,'*  The  leadership  of 
Irish  Nationalism  is  not  soch  a  customary  ambi- 
tion.  It  offers  no  security  of  power  and  leads  to 
poverty  rather  dian  to  wealth.  Wlien  we  realise 
what  were  the  man's  proper  tastes  and  inclina- 
tions we  shall  understand  that  the  sacrifices  he 
made  for  his  countiy  were  real  and  not  theatrical 
sacrifices. 

Durii^  the  PameU  split  his  constant  compan- 
ions in  social  life  were  Mr.  Patrick  O'Brien, 
member  for  Kilkenny  city,  and  Mr.  Edmund 

[861 


THE  LEADER  AND  THE  MAN 

Leamy,  that  most  charming  of  Nationalists. 
Death  deprived  Mr.  Redmond  of  both  these 
friends.  At  a  later  date  he  showed  great  appre- 
ciation of  Mr.  Stephen  Gwynn,  a  scholar  and  man 
of  letters  who,  although  a  son  of  one  of  the  most 
distinguished  Unionist  houses  in  Ireland,  had 
thrown  in  his  lot  with  the  Home  Rule  movement. 
Notable  among  his  English  friends  were  two  Lib- 
eral journalists,  Mr.  W.  M.  Crook  and  Mr.  Har- 
old Spender.  He  had  a  particular  partiality,  how- 
ever, for  Colonials  and  for  Americans;  he  was 
proud  of  the  Australian  associations  that  he  had 
through  his  wife;  and  there  was  nothing  that' he 
liked  better  than  to  entertain  visitors  from  the 
Dominions  at  his  house  at  Aughavanagh,  Co. 
Wicklow,  during  the  Recess.  He  had  also  many 
friends  among  the  Irish  priesthood,  and  among 
those  on  whose  counsel  he  set  the  highest  value 
was  Dr.  Kelly,  the  Bishop  of  Ross,  who  stood  by 
him  (in  a  minority  among  ecclesiastics)  during 
the  last  trying  period  of  his  political  career. 
Though  he  never  sought  the  society  of  political 
opponents  he  could  get  on  well  with  Irish  Union- 
ists and  Protestants  when  he  came  across  them 
in  social  life,  and  those  Unionists  and  Protestants 
who  had  the  pleasure  of  his  acquaintance  spoke 
always  in  the  highest  terms  of  his  geniality  and 
good  manners. 

[37] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

His  popularity  in  his  own  Party  remained  great 
to  the  end.  *'He  was  the  ideal  chairman,"  says 
Mr.  Law,  "courteous,  understanding  and  faithful 
to  the  humblest  of  his  followers."  Differences  cf 
opinion  might  arise  within  the  Party,  but  they 
never  disturbed  his  sense  of  justice.  Such  differ- 
ences of  opinion  arose  very  acutely  during  the 
last  year  or  two  of  his  life,  particularly  during 
the  sittings  of  the  Convention.  When  a  decisive 
division  was  being  taken  at  Regent  House,  Mr. 
Redmond  found  himself  opposed  by  one  of  his 
principal  colleagues;  the  Nationalist  representa- 
tion had  split  up  into  a  majority  and  a  minority 
section.  It  was  Redmond's  opinion  that  the  ac- 
tion of  the  minority  disposed  of  all  hope  of  a 
fruitful  issue  to  the  Convention.  He  returned 
"heart-broken"  to  London.  Mr.  Law  saw  him 
there  and,  being  aware  of  what  had  passed,  spoke 
reproachfully  of  the  minority  leader.  Redmond 
said  at  once,  "He  did  what  he  thought  was  best 
for  Ireland."  Tiredness  and  disappointment  had 
not  embittered  his  soul. 

On  the  other  hand  he  was — at  least  towards 
the  end  of  his  life — a  little  impatient  of  the  ex- 
ternal forces  which  directed  themselves  against 
his  policy.  He  had  no  personal  points  of  contact 
with  the  Young  Ireland  of  Sinn  Fein.  It  is  prob- 
ably true  that  there  were  no  possible  means  of 

[38] 


THE  LEADER  AND  THE  MAN 

accommodation  between  himself  and  those  Irish- 
men who  rejected  Parliamentarism  as  the  Devil 
and  asserted  Irish  neutrality  in  the  war.  The 
mischief  was  already  done.  To  an  American  in- 
terviewer in  19 1 5  he  described  the  Sinn  Feiners 
as  "an  insignificant  handful  of  pro-Germans." 
The  attitude  may  have  been  a  spirited  one,  but 
the  facts  were  not  as  stated.  Even  before  the 
war — when  an  accommodation  might  yet  have 
been  possible — Mr.  Redmond  seems  to  have  shut 
his  eyes  to  the  critical,  insurgent  tendencies  of  the 
younger  political  generation. 

During  the  latter  part  of  his  life  he  resided 
chiefly  in  London,  in  a  small  Kensington  flat.  His 
house  in  Dublin  was  closed.  Every  year,  how- 
ever, autumn  saw  him  at  Aughavanagh  in  Co. 
Wicklow.  Aughavanagh,  which  used  to  be  the 
property  of  the  Parnells,  had  been  built  for  a 
barracks  at  the  time  of  the  Rebellion  of  '98.  It 
had  long  been  disused  like  other  buildings  built 
in  Ireland  at  the  same  date  and  for  the  same 
purpose,  until  Mr.  Redmond  put  it  into  repair 
and  used  it  as  a  shooting  lodge.  The  many- 
roomed,  gaunt  house  is  set  many  miles  from  any 
railway,  amid  a  wild  scenery,  on  the  so-called 
Military  Road  which  traverses  the  highlands  of 
Wicklow  and  finally  leads  into  the  county  of  Dub- 
lin. 

189] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

John  Redmond  loved  Wicklow  dearly,  not  less 
for  the  quality  of  its  scenery  and  the  opportuni- 
ties it  offered  for  an  open-air  life  than  for  its  po- 
litical associations.  Grouse  shooting  and  fish- 
ing were  his  favourite  sports,  but  he  was  also 
happy  on  a  horse.  His  love  of  the  country  did 
not,  however,  manifest  itself  in  the  violent  Eng- 
lish fashion.  He  had  a,  talent  for  idleness,  and 
did  not  need  to  seek  for  what  Havelock  Ellis  has 
called  that  "muscular  auto-intoxication  for  the 
sake  of  which  the  Anglo-Saxon  misses  the  finest 
moments  that  life  can  give."  Nothing  pleased 
him  better  on  his  holidays  than  to  lie  in  the  Wick- 
low heather,  his  face  to  the  sun,  near  the  murmur 
of  the  running  water,  and  to  summon  back  again 
those  day  dreams  which,  as  his  kindly  schoolmas- 
ters thought,  had  been  the  too  close  companions 
of  his  soul. 

It  has  often  been  said  that  Mr.  Redmond  was 
by  nature  a  conservative.  The  old  fashioned  term 
*'Whig"  would  convey  a  better  idea  of  the  char- 
acter of  his  general  political  ideas.  He  inherited 
much  of  his  outlook  from  Burke  and  Grattan  and 
the  great  Anglo-Irish  statesman  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  In  regard  to  education,  however,  he 
was,  owing  to  his  Catholicism,  quite  a  conserva- 
tive, and,  when  Mr.  Balfour  was  Premier  he 
brought  his  party  to  Westminster,  against  the 

[40] 


THE  LEADER  AND  THE  MAN 

opinion  of  radicals  like  T.  P.  O'Connor  and  Dav- 
itt,  to  support  Balfourian  legislation  for  the  Eng- 
lish Church  Schools.  Yet  one  cannot  give  the 
name  Tory  to  a  man  whose  life  was  devoted  to  a 
movement  which  had  for  its  main  end  the  destruc- 
tion of  that  aristocratic  centralised  Government 
which  Dublin  Castle  represents.  Nationalism  in 
Ireland  inevitably  bases  itself  upon  some  theory 
of  political  democracy  and  a  belief  in  majority 
rule;  Irish  Unionism  justifies  itself  upon  the  aris- 
tocratic principle  that  a  propertied  minority,  long 
established  in  power,  experienced  in  the  art  of 
government,  may  not  be  overborne  by  the  mere 
weight  of  numbers. 

That  Mr.  Redmond  worked  and  voted  with  the 
British  Liberal  party  was  not  "solely  a  matter  of 
high  policy,"  as  Mr.  Harold  Spender  thinks.  ^ 
He  believed,  as  British  Liberals  believe,  in  polit- 
ical democracy.  On  the  other  hand,  he  had,  like 
Burke  and  Grattan,  a  just  recognition  of  superi- 
orities, and  his  ideal  democracy  could  certainly 
have  chosen  for  its  leaders  men  of  birth,  experi- 
ence and  position.  He  certainly  hoped  that  the 
Irish  Unionist  "gentleman"  would  play  an  im- 
portant role  in  a  self-governing  Ireland.  Nor 
had  he  any  feeling  for  economic  democracy.  "His 

*  "John  Redmond :  an  Impression."    By  Harold  Spender,  Con- 
temporary Review,  April,  1918. 

[41] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

ideas  of  land  reform  stopped,"  as  Mr.  Spender 
truly  says,  "at  the  point  of  desiring  peasant  pro- 
prietorship. There  his  feeling  for  his  race  (and, 
one  may  add,  his  religion)  was  reinforced  by  a 
strong  belief  that  peasant  proprietorship  would 
give  weight  to  the  new  Irish  social  fabric  when- 
ever Home  Rule  was  once  established.  For  his 
idea  of  the  future  Home  Rule  society  was  by  no 
means  that  of  a  restless,  eager,  progressive  com- 
munity. He  rather  looked  to  it  as  a  stable  make- 
weight to  the  revolutionary  tendencies  of  West- 
ern Europe." 

Certainly  in  matters  outside  of  politics  he  was 
no  apostle  of  change.  His  general  view  of  life 
was  that  of  the  Irish  Catholic  country  gentleman. 
He  was  a  traditionalist  in  religion.  His  faith  was 
simple  and  sincere ;  and,  as  his  nephew,  Mr.  Red- 
mond Howard,  has  observed,  his  peremptory  and 
practical  mind  scarcely  appreciated  those  subtle- 
ties of  thought,  those  shades  of  meaning,  those 
clashings  of  dogma,  those  contradictions  between 
religion  and  dogma  which  make  Catholicism  a 
philosophy.  It  was  well  said  by  Mr.  Howard 
that  there  was  more  of  the  Roman  than  the  Greek 
about  him.  According  to  the  same  writer  he  was 
"typically  Irish  in  condemnation  of  all  breaches 
of  Church  discipline."  His  literary  tastes  were 
classical.    He  was  well  acquainted  with  the  great 

[42] 


THE  LEADER  AND  THE  MAN 

English  writers  of  the  past  and  could  recite  with 
gusto  the  purple  passages  of  Shakespeare  and  of 
Cicero.  But  in  later  years  he  read  very  little, 
partly  because  he  lacked  the  leisure  and  partly 
because  modern  literature  did  not  attract  him. 

Though  he  might  sometimes  attend  at  the  Irish 
National  Theatre  as  a  patriotic  duty  he  found 
little  or  no  significance  in  what  is  called  the  Celtic 
Renaissance.  Tom  Moore  seemed  to  him  to  be 
the  Irish  National  poet.  He  was,  however,  well 
disposed  towards  the  movement  for  safeguarding 
the  Gaelic  speech,  and  he  spoke  strongly  enough 
on  many  occasions  against  the  Anglicisation  of 
Ireland.  He  had  a  sense  of  the  great  Gaelic  past, 
of  the  civilisation  which  had  covered  Western 
Europe  with  seats  of  learning  and  religious  insti- 
tutions. But,  unlike  some  modern  Irishmen  in 
whom  this  sense  is  highly  developed,  he  had  also 
a  capacity  for  admiring  the  progressive  communi- 
ties of  the  present  day,  even  though  they  might 
be  termed  "Anglo-Saxon";  nor  could  he  forget 
the  part  that  Irish  blood  and  brains  had  played  in 
their  development. 


[48] 


CHAPTER  II 

ANCESTRY  AND  YOUTH 

THE  name  of  Redmond,  like  the  names  of  so 
many  Irish  leaders,  cannot  claim  a  Gaelic 
origin.  It  is  an  Anglicised  form  of  the  French 
Raymond,  a  name  which  calls  to  mind  the  Middle 
Ages  and  the  celebrated  Counts  of  Toulouse,  com- 
baters  of  the  Albigensian  heresy.  The  ancestors 
attributed  to  the  Redmonds  in  Ireland  bore  that 
name  of  Raymond,  and  the  designation  Le  Gros. 
Raymond  Le  Gros  landed  in  Wexford  in  ii 72,  a 
few  months  prior  to  Strongbow.  Coming  as  an 
English  adventurer  with  designs  upon  Irish  land, 
he  subsequently  married  the  sister  of  Strongbow ; 
he  then  became  the  Earl  of  Pembroke  and  a  vast 
proprietor  of  Gaelic  property.  The  ruins  of  the 
Abbey  in  which  this,  the  first  English  marriage 
in  Ireland,  took  place,  are  still  shown  in  County 
Wexford.  Though  Raymond  acquired  a  consid- 
erable quantity  of  land  by  his  marriage,  little  is 
known  of  his  subsequent  history,  and  whether  he 
ever  founded  a  family  is  uncertain. 

[44] 


ANCESTRY  AND  YOUTH 

O'Hara  in  his  book  on  Irish  Families  states 
that  the  Redmonds  of  Ballaghkeene  in  Wexford 
had  a  common  ancestor  with  the  noble  Geraldines 
(Dukes  of  Leinster)  ;  this  family  died  out  in  1689. 
Another  well  known  family  of  the  Redmonds, 
also  extinct,  were  from  Fethard.  We  find  in 
early  editions  of  Burke's  Landed  Gentry  an  ac- 
count of  a  third  family  of  Redmonds  from  the 
same  County  of  Wexford — the  Redmonds  of  the 
Deeps.  Their  founder  was  Edward  Redmond, 
a  merchant  who  flourished  in  Wexford  at  the 
latter  end  of  the  i8th  century.  Edward  Redmond 
married  Anne  Corish  of  Wexford — Corish  is  the 
name  of  a  family  which  has  in  recent  times  been 
influential  in  Irish  Nationalist  politics — and  had 
two  sons,  one  of  whom,  John,  became  a  wealthy 
banker  in  the  south  of  Ireland.  This  John  Red- 
mond had  in  turn  two  sons,  Patrick  Walter  and 
John  Edward.  The  latter,  who  also  resided  at 
the  Deeps,  Co.  Wexford,  was  the  first  Redmond 
to  enter  Parliament.  His  elder  brother,  Patrick 
Walter  of  Pembroke  House,  Co.  Dublin,  had 
three  sons,  John  Patrick  of  Ballytrent,  Co.  Wex- 
ford, William  Archer  and  Walter.  The  second 
of  these,  William  Archer,  sometime  M.P.  for 
Wexford,  was  the  father  of  the  John  and  William 
Redmond  of  our  days.  William  Archer  Red- 
mond died  in  1880,  his  elder  brother  survived  him 

[45] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

for  a  few  years,  and  on  the  latter's  death,  the 
Redmonds  of  Ballaghkeene  and  of  Fethard  being 
extinct,  John  Redmond,  the  late  Irish  leader,  be- 
came the  head  of  the  family  in  Ireland. 

Constantly  the  children  of  the  settler  in  Ire- 
land became  "more  Irish  than  the  Irish  them- 
selves," and  history  would  not  have  to  record  an 
exception  if  it  could  be  proved  that  Raymond  Le 
Gros  had  founded  a  family  which  finally  produced 
as  its  head  a  leader  of  the  Nationalist  reconquest 
of  Ireland.  The  Irish  are  fond  of  pedigrees  and 
take  an  interest  in  race  origins,  but  Irish  patriot- 
ism has  long  been  established  on  a  basis  broad 
enough  to  include  not  the  Dane  and  Norman  only, 
but  also  the  Cromwellian  and  WiUiamite.  Em- 
met, Tone,  Parnell  are  all  English  names, 
"newer"  English  than  Redmond;  and  if  the  Red- 
monds, like  the  Geraldines,  "began  their  lawless 
reign  of  conquerors  in  the  van  of  Strongbow," 
this  has  been  forgiven  them  long  ago.  Indeed, 
there  are  few  Irishmen  to-day  who  would  not  be 
proud  to  trace  a  connection  with  an  ancient 
Anglo-Norman  house  like  the  Raymonds.  But 
there  is,  as  has  been  said,  no  certainty  that  any 
of  the  blood  of  Raymond  Le  Gros  ran  in  the  veins 
of  John  Redmond.  For  all  we  know  the  latter's 
family  may  have  been  purely  Irish  in  origin ;  for, 
as  we  must  remember,  Irish  people  in  the  early 

[46] 


ANCESTRY  AND  YOUTH 

period  of  English  rule  had  perforce  often  to  dis- 
guise their  nationality  by  borrowing  surnames 
from  their  conquerors. 

This  can  be  said — and  it  is  the  chief  thing — 
that  Redmonds  have  for  many  centuries  played 
an  unstained  part  in  the  history  of  the  County 
Wexford  and  South-Eastern  Ireland.  They  have 
included  landlords  and  peasants,  rebels  and  offi- 
cers of  the  British  Army,  priest£  and  merchants. 
We  may  be  sure,  moreover,  that  the  Redmonds, 
whatever  their  origin,  did  not  lack  the  Gaelic  ad- 
mixture. All  the  early  English  settlers  in  Ire- 
land intermarried  with  the  native  population  and 
its  descendants.  After  the  Reformation  divisions 
became  more  acute  and  intermarriage  less  fre- 
quent; but  some  of  the  old  English  families  re- 
tained the  ancient  faith  and  finally  were  merged 
in  the  Irish  nation.  Among  these  families  were 
the  Redmonds. 

The  Redmonds  through  the  darkest  days  of 
the  Penal  Laws  adhered  steadfastly  to  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  Church.  One  Redmond  fought  gal- 
lantly against  Cromwell  and  subsequently  suf- 
fered forfeiture  of  much  of  his  land.  Another 
joined  the  "Wild  Geese"  and  became  an  officer 
in  the  Regiment  of  the  Chevalier  de  Dillon  in  the 
Wars  of  Louis  XIV.  A  third  was  the  friend  of 
Napoleon.    A  fourth  took  part  in  the  American 

[47] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

Civil  War.  The  Redmonds  were  evidently  men 
of  arms  rather  than  of  books,  arts  or  policy.  But 
the  most  popularly  famous  member  of  the  family 
was  a  priest,  namely  Father  John  Redmond,  who 
was  executed  after  the  insurrection  of  1798. 
Father  John  had  not  participated  in  the  Rising, 
being,  indeed,  as  were  most  of  the  Redmonds, 
anti-Republican.  He  was,  however,  the  friend  of 
a  scoundrel  of  the  name  of  Lord  Mount  Norris 
who  had  a  connection  with  the  United  Irishmen. 
Lord  Mount  Norris,  in  order  to  divert  suspicion 
from  himself,  brought  charges  against  the  priest 
which  led  to  the  latter's  execution. 

The  romantic  political  associations  of  his  na- 
tive country  never  ceased  to  affect  John  Red- 
mond's imagination.  "My  boyish  ears  had  lis- 
tened," he  once  said,  "to  the  tales  of  '98  from  the 
lips  of  old  men  who  had  themselves  witnessed 
the  struggles,  and  I  scarcely  know  a  family  which 
cannot  tell  of  a  father,  or  grandfather  or  some 
near  relative  who  died  fighting  at  Wexford, 
Oulart  or  Ross." 

Mr.  William  Archer  Redmond  married  Miss 
Hoey  of  Co.  Wicklow,  an  army  officer's  daughter, 
and  his  first  son,  John  Edward  Redmond,  was 
born  in  1857  in  Dublin.  The  one  other  son  of  the 
marriage  was  the  late  William  Redmond,  M.P., 
who  has  "died  for  Ireland"  in  the  War.    Of  two 

[48] 


ANCESTRY  AND  YOUTH 

sisters,  one  became  a  nun  and  the  other  married 
an  Australian,  Mr.  Howard.  John  Redmond 
spent  his  earliest  years  at  Ballytrent  on  the  Wex- 
ford seacoast,  the  home  of  his  uncle,  Patrick  Wal- 
ter. The  family  was  of  simple  habits  and  lived 
the  life  of  squireens  (small  squires)  rather  than 
that  of  Anglo-Irish  aristocrats  or  landlords  of 
the  type  familiarised  by  Lever.  At  that  time  in 
Ireland  Protestants  represented  almost  all  that 
there  was  of  aristocratic  prestige,  and  Catholic 
families,  however  respectable  their  origins,  did 
not  easily  win  a  proper  social  recognition.  If 
they  endeavoured  to  do  so  it  might  be  at  the  cost 
of  being  accounted  shoneens  (snobs)  and  "Castle 
Catholics"  by  popular  opinion.  The  Redmonds 
were  never  shoneens.  Nevertheless,  with  their 
army  and  other  respectable  connections,  they 
held  themselves  in  good  esteem,  and,  as  we  shall 
see,  it  was  something  like  a  shock  to  the  family 
when  its  heir  threw  in  his  lot  with  the  "rebels"  of 
the  Land  League. 

The  decade  in  which  John  Redmond  was  born 
was  a  quiet  decade  in  Irish  politics — and  a  cor- 
rupt one.  All  traces  of  the  idealism  of  the  young 
Ireland  movement  of  the  'forties  had  seemingly 
disappeared,  only  seemingly,  however,  for  in  the 
'sixties  Fenianism  revived  the  doctrine  of  politi- 
cal self-sacrifice  and  physical  risk.    The  failure 

[49] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

of  the  Fenians  to  achieve  an  end,  coupled  with 
their  success  in  reviving  the  national  spirit,  of- 
fered those  Irishmen  who  were  at  once  moderate 
in  opinion  and  personally  honest  an  opportunity 
of  having  themselves  heard.  The  elder  Redmond 
was  such  an  Irishman.  After  his  election  for 
Wexford  in  1872  he  attended  the  first  Home  Rule 
Conference  of  1873,  and  identified  himself  with 
the  movement  led  by  that  gifted  and  eloquent 
Irishman,  Isaac  Butt  (inventor  of  the  term 
''Home  Rule"). 

The  Home  Rulers  of  those  days  were,  it  must 
be  understood,  in  no  sense  revolutionary,  but  pro- 
fessed a  decided  loyalty  to  the  Empire  and  a  de- 
votion to  the  rights  of  property.  These  early 
Home  Rulers  numbered  many  brilliant  person- 
alities. Butt  himself  and  George  Henry  Moore  ^ 
were  men  of  genius.  The  talents  of  the  elder 
Redmond,  his  good  sense  and  judgment,  were 
appreciated,  but  did  not  lend  themselves  to  dis- 
play. He  was  opposed  to  the  ruder  movement 
initiated  by  Parnell  and  to  the  Bolshevist  meth- 
ods of  Biggar  and  the  Land  League.  The  char- 
acter of  the  Home  Rule  movement  changed  ut- 

*  Father  of  George  Moore  the  novelist  and  Colonel  Moore  of 
the  National  Volunteers.  Colonel  Moore  and  John  Redmond 
worked  together  at  the  beginning  of  the  present  war  in  the  en- 
deavour to  raise  an  Irish  brigade  for  service  in  France  and 
Ireland. 

[60] 


ANCESTRY  AND  YOUTH 

terly  in  the  later  'seventies,  and  when  John  Red- 
mond entered  Parliament  as  a  Nationalist  mem- 
ber, he  did  a  thing  which  the  middle  classes  no 
longer  held  respectable.  His  young  brother  Wil- 
liam, then  an  officer  in  the  Militia,  telegraphed 
desperately  on  hearing  the  news  of  John's  de- 
cision, "For  God's  sake,  don't  disgrace  the  fam- 
ily." 

It  appears  that  John  Redmond's  interest  in 
public  affairs  had  been  early  awakened.  He  was 
educated  at  Clongowes,  the  celebrated  Jesuit  Col- 
lege at  Kildare  which  is  the  principal  School  in 
Ireland  for  Irish  Catholics  of  the  middle  classes. 
The  atmosphere  of  Clongowes  is  not  pugnaciously 
Nationalist,  although  many  Nationalists  have 
been  among  its  pupils.  ^  At  that  time,  no  doubt, 
John  Redmond  shared  the  moderate  opinions  of 
his  father.  His  contemporaries  were  impressed 
by  his  maturity.  "He  took  an  interest  in  poli- 
tics," says  Mr.  Gannon  of  Maynooth,  "and  lived 
half  out  of  school  in  a  world  of  thought  and  ac- 
tion more  befitting  a  man  .  .  .  His  character 
was  fixed  early.  I  well  remember  his  delight 
when  Marshal  MacMahon  became  President  of 
the  French  Republic,  and  his  saying  to  the  lay- 
brother  who  used  to  look  after  us  in  the  refectory. 

'  William  Redmond  and,  in  a  later  generation,  T.  M.  Kettle 
were  Clongownians. 

[61J 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

'Hurrah!  Brother,  they  have  an  Irish  President 
in  France.'  " 

It  does  not  seem,  however,  that  John  Redmond 
fell  under  the  suspicion  of  being  a  prig,  and  he 
played  games  with  fair  success.  Father  Kane  of 
Clongowes  describes  a  meeting  with  John  Red- 
mond and  his  father  in  1870.  "The  father  was 
a  tall,  majestic  man  with  a  most  aristocratic  face, 
a  perfect  portrait  of  which,  although  with  youth- 
ful line  and  curve,  was  stamped  upon  the  features 
of  the  son,"  John  Redmond  was  recognised  as 
the  cleverest  boy  in  the  school,  although  he  was 
not  always  at  the  top  of  his  class.  What  he  rather 
lacked  was  the  quality  of  steady  industry,  and  he 
was  inclined  to  indulge  in  day-dreams.  He  wrote 
very  good  essays  and  attempted  poetry,  for  which 
there  was  a  class  in  Clongowes.  "I  have  heard 
it  stated  since,"  says  Father*  Kane,  "that  some 
few  of  the  pupils  then  at  Clongowes  did  not  think 
that  John  Redmond  had  any  real  sense  of  poetry. 
With  that  criticism  I  most  thoroughly  disagree. 
Many  of  the  English  poems  which  he  wrote  for 
me  were  quite  up  to  the  standard  of  high-class 
magazines." 

John  Redmond  also  showed  a  great  aptitude 
for  the  actor's  art  and  there  is  a  portrait  of  him 
extant  in  the  role  of  Hamlet.  He  took  a  leading 
part  in  the  Debating  Society  of  the  School.    Elo- 

[52] 


Ity  I'ermlsHiim  of  the  llcv.  Father  U]iiin 


JOHN   REDMOND   AS    HAMLET   IN    A   STUDENTS* 
PERFORMAXCF.   AT  CCONGOWES 


ANCESTRY  AND  YOUTH 

cution  was  another  subject  taught  at  Clongowes, 
and  here,  as  may  be  imagined,  the  young  Red- 
mond had  no  rival.  Mr.  Bell,  the  compiler  of 
Bell's  Annual,  was  a  master  at  Clongowes,  and 
the  pupil  was  rebeUious.  "On  Academy  Day," 
says  Father  Kane,  "John  Redmond  was  to  de- 
claim an  English  poem.  He  appealed  to  me  as  to 
whether  he  was  bound  to  carry  out  Mr.  Bell's 
directions.  I  told  him  to  obey  Mr.  Bell  during 
the  practices,  but  to  follow  out  his  own  ideas  on 
the  occasion  itself.  The  result  was  a  great  suc- 
cess, for  it  was  not  another  Bell  who  spoke,  but 
a  greater  elocutionist,  John  Redmond." 

Mr.  Redmond  always  dwelt  affectionately  upon 
his  school-days.  As  a  politician  he  was,  at  times 
and  in  a  mild  way,  anti-clerical,  but  he  had  never 
any  criticism  to  pass  upon  the  Jesuits'  method  of 
education.  "I  know  I  was  taught  here,"  he  said 
at  the  Clongowes  Centenary  Celebrations  in  19 14, 
"to  accept  success  without  arrogance  and  defeat 
without  repining.  I  know  I  was  taught  here  by 
precept  and  example  the  lessons  of  truth,  chivalry 
and  manliness."  At  the  National  Banquet  at  the 
Hotel  Cecil  on  St.  Patrick's  Day,  1912,  John  Red- 
mond again  referred  to  his  school-days.  "To  the 
Jesuits,"  he  exclaimed,  "and  to  Clongowes  I  owe 
all  that  I  have  of  good  and  all  that  I  may  have 

[63] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

been  able  to  do,  or  tried  at  least  to  do,  for  the 
happiness  and  greatness  of  Ireland." 

John  Redmond  was  at  Clongowes  from  1870 
to  1873;  his  brother  William  came  to  Clongowes 
in  1873  and  left  in  1876.  From  Clongowes  John 
Redmond  went  to  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  that 
Elizabethan  institution  which  has  been  character- 
ised as  a  stronghold  of  the  Protestant  mind  in 
Ireland.  There  was  then  in  Ireland  no  National 
University  with  the  "suitable  Catholic  atmos- 
phere" such  as  now  (largely  owing  to  Mr.  Red- 
mond's efforts)  exists,  and  Trinity  College  was 
frequented  but  little  by  Catholic  youth.  Never- 
theless Nationalists  are  proud  of  Trinity,  the 
alma  mater  of  Burke  and  Grattan,  which  has  pro- 
duced by  reaction  many  Protestant  patriots.  John 
Redmond  never  said  a  bitter  word  of  Trinity,  and 
it  was  there  indeed  that  he  learned  to  appreciate 
the  qualities  of  Protestant  Ireland.  We  may  note 
that  if  in  his  subsequent  political  career,  he  some- 
times attacked  the  pretensions  of  English  rule 
in  Ireland  in  extreme  language,  he  was  always 
moderate  and  conservative  in  his  attitude 
towards  those  of  his  fellow  countrymen  who  had 
been  brought  up  in  a  faith  different  from  his  own. 

From  Trinity  College  John  Redmond  proceed- 
ed, without  taking  a  degree,  to  King's  Inn,  Dub- 
lin.   He  intended  to  follow  the  profession  of  a 

[64] 


ANCESTRY  AND  YOUTH 

barrister.  Mr.  W.  M.  Crook,  an  Irish  journalist 
in  London,  has  furnished  some  impressions  of 
him  at  this  time.  John  Redmond's  main  political 
preoccupation  was  then  temperance  reform,  and 
he  practised  what  he  preached.  "It  was  the  cus- 
tom for  students  at  King's  Inn  to  dine  in  messes 
of  six.  A  fixed  quantity  of  wine  per  head  was 
allowed  to  each  table,  and  thirsty  students,  of 
which  there  were  not  a  few,  always  sought  dili- 
gently for  totally  abstaining  acquaintances  to  join 
the  mess.  As  I  did  not  drink  wine  I  found  my- 
self in  great  demand,  and  on  one  occasion  the 
same  mess  captured  John  Redmond  also.  As  he 
never  took  more  than  half  a  glass  of  wine  at  din- 
ner this  lucky  table  found  itself  with  six  bottles 
of  wine  for  four  persons — and  I  had  the  privilege 
of  being  introduced  to  John  Redmond."  The 
same  writer  describes  John  Redmond  as  a  student 
and  interpreter  of  Shakespeare  greater  than  most 
of  the  professors  of  English  literature. 

John  Redmond's  heart  was,  most  likely,  never 
in  the  law;  yet,  when  he  went  to  London  in  1879 
to  take  up  a  post  as  Clerk  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, he  had  not  abandoned  the  intention  of  pur- 
suing the  advocate's  profession.  Besides  trying 
his  hand  at  journalism  he  continued  his  legal 
studies.  The  House  of  Commons  Clerkship,  which 
his  father  had  obtained  for  him,  carried  with  it 

[55] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

a  salary  of  £300  a  year.  But  he  must  very  soon 
have  begun  to  hope  that  politics  would  be  his  true 
career.  The  House  of  Commons  exercised  at 
once  a  fascination  upon  him,  and  he  interested 
himself  particularly  in  the  personnel  of  the  Irish 
benches  in  that  assembly.  The  star  of  Parnell 
was  in  the  ascendant,  and  the  group  of  "activist" 
Home  Rulers  proposed  to  carry  Ireland  with  them 
at  the  next  election.  Mr.  Redmond  senior,  who 
had  not  joined  the  new  group,  had  been  ailing  for 
some  time.  John  Redmond  had  come  to  London 
partly  on  that  account — and  he  was  there  when 
his  father  died  in  the  autumn  of  1880.  Young 
Redmond  and  his  ambitions  were  well  known  to 
Parnell's  lieutenant;  and  Mr.  T.  M.  Healy,  ac- 
cording to  a  story  told  by  himself,  proposed  that 
he  (John  Redmond)  should  be  Parnellite  candi- 
date for  the  seat  which  Mr.  Redmond  senior  had 
left  vacant.  Parnell  asked,  "Who  is  Redmond?" 
"Why,"  answered  Mr.  Healy,  "don't  you  know? 
The  chap  who  hands  out  the  programmes?"  "Oh, 
that  damned  fellow !"  said  Parnell.  ^  It  was  de- 
cided finally  that  Mr.  Healy  should  have  the 
Wexford  seat ;  but  Redmond  had  not  long  to  wait 
for  another  opportunity;  and  on  the  21st  Janu- 

*  Mr.  Healy  told  this  story  at  the  Election  of  1910,  when  as  an 
Independent  Nationalist  he  was  aiming  a  derogatory  wit  at  the 
leader  of  the  official  party. 

[56] 


ANCESTRY  AND  YOUTH 

ary,  1881,  he  was  returned  unopposed  for  the  bor- 
ough of  New  Ross  in  his  native  county. 

Only  twenty-four  years  old  at  the  time,  he  had 
thirty-seven  more  years  to  live,  and  these  were  to 
be  devoted  wholly  to  the  advancement  of  the 
Home  Rule  cause,  at  Westminster,  in  Ireland  and 
overseas.  Unlike  most  of  the  brilliant  young  men 
whom  Parnell  had  gathered  together  in  his  party, 
John  Redmond,  if  not  rich,  had  personal  means, 
and  though  he  was  subsequently  called  to  the 
Irish  Bar  (1887  Michaelmas  Term),  he  made  lit- 
tle effort  in  the  Courts,  appearing  only  in  a  few 
political  cases.  His  colleagues,  many  of  whom 
became  rich  and  celebrated,  or  both,  in  various 
professions,  often  wondered  at  John  Redmond's 
practical  abstention  from  all  activity  but  that  of 
politics.  Such  a  great  orator  could  have  made — 
as  Mr.  Healy,  no  friend  of  his,  once  declared — 
£10,000  a  year  at  the  Bar.  The  reasons  were,  no 
doubt,  several :  in  the  first  place  there  was  not  the 
same  spur  of  economic  necessity  in  his  case  as  in 
that  of  men  like  Mr.  Healy,  Mr.  Thomas  Sexton 
and  Mr.  T.  P.  O'Connor.  Secondly — and  in  this 
he  resembled  Mr.  Dillon — he  found  in  politics  an 
all  sufficing  interest  and  excitement.  It  may  be 
added,  thirdly,  that  John  Redmond,  although  a 
man  of  orderly  habit  and  one  who  never  neglected 

[57] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

duty,  was  never  such  a  "glutton  for  work"  as 
Mr.  Healy,  Mr.  O'Connor  and  others  of  the 
young  men  whom  Parnell  trained  to  do  his  bid- 
ding. 


[[68] 


CHAPTER  III 


EARLY   POLITICAL   LIFE 


JOHN  REDMOND  had  at  least  one  experi- 
ence in  Irish  politics  before  becoming  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Irish  Party.  This  was  at  Enniscorthy 
in  Co.  Wexford,  in  1880.  Parnell  had  just  re- 
turned from  an  important  tour  in  America. 
While  there  he  had  met  leaders  of  the  Clan-na- 
Gael  and  founded  the  American  Land  League. 
His  objective  had  been,  to  quote  his  biographer, 
"the  union  of  all  Irishmen,  not  only  in  Ireland,  but 
all  over  the  v^'orld  against  England ;"  nevertheless, 
he  had  not  succeeded  completely  in  conciliating 
every  representative  of  advanced  Nationalism, 
as  there  were  still  large  numbers  of  believers  in 
the  methods  of  open  physical  force  as  contrasted 
with  parliamentary  obstruction,  the  boycott  and 
the  semi-constitutional  methods  of  the  land  strug- 
gle. Parnell  had  nominated  Mr.  Barry  and  Mr. 
Byrne  his  candidates  at  the  Enniscorthy  election, 
and  with  John  Redmond  went  south  to  speak  for 
them.    They  were  opposed  by  the  priests  on  the 

[«9] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

one  side  and  the  Fenians  on  the  other,  were  re- 
fused a  hearing,  and  attacked  by  a  mob,  Mr.  Red- 
mond being  knocked  down  and  cut  in  the  face. 
Parnell  smiled  at  the  mishap  of  his  young  sup- 
porter. "Well,"  said  he,  "you  have  shed  blood 
for  me  at  all  events." 

The  incident,  as  reported  in  Mr.  Redmond's 
own  words,  is  interesting  as  showing  how  com- 
pletely he  had  fallen  under  the  fascinating  spell 
of  the  enigmatic  Parnell.  It  is  interesting,  too, 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  moralist  who  sur- 
veys impartially  the  repetitions  of  Irish  history. 
Most  of  the  members  of  Parnell's  Parliamentary 
Party,  including  Parnell  himself,  in  those  days 
were  extremists  in  the  sense  that  they  sym- 
pathised with  the  Fenian  demand  for  complete 
separation  from  England.  "None  of  us,"  said 
Parnell  at  Rochester,  U.  S.  A.,  "will  rest  until  we 
have  destroyed  the  last  link  which  keeps  Ireland 
bound  to  England."  The  question  at  issue  in 
Enniscorthy  was  one  of  method  rather  than  of 
aim.  Many  of  the  fighting  Nationalists  of  the 
country,  though  they  admired  and  respected  Par- 
nell, and  believed  that  he  was  genuinely  a  sep- 
aratist, still  asserted  the  futility  of  the  Parlia- 
mentary action  which  he  recommended.  Par- 
nell, as  we  know,  finally  converted  the  mass  of 
the  Irish  people,  and  almost  all  the  fighting  Na- 

[60] 


EARLY  POLITICAL  LIFE 

tionalists  with  them,  to  his  own  poHcy,  and  for  a 
space  of  thirty  years  or  more,  none  save  the 
wilder  idealists  and  individualists  objected  to  the 
employment  of  the  Parliamentary  weapon.  In 
that  time  Mr.  Redmond  had  succeeded  Parnell 
as  Irish  leader.  We  know  how,  after  a  long  period 
of  almost  unquestioned  authority,  he  found  him- 
self, in  the  last  two  years  of  his  life,  opposed  by 
those  same  forces,  resurgent,  which  had  drawn 
blood  from  him  on  the  occasion  of  his  first  ap- 
pearance on  a  public  platform.  Between  19 14 
and  19 1 8  Irish  fighting  Nationalism  repudiated 
Parliamentarism  and  returned  to  the  standpoint 
of  1879.  ^ 

I  have  elsewhere  dwelt  upon  the  points  of  like- 
ness and  dissimilarity  between  Redmond  and 
Parnell.  It  may,  however,  be  well  to  say  once 
more  that  Redmond  never  shared  Parnell's  curi- 
ous but  deep  seated  contempt  for  English  insti- 
tutions, and  English  ways  and  the  English  mind.  ^ 
Mr.  Redmond's  gradual  development  of  opinion 
in  an  Imperialist  direction  was  inevitable ;  indeed 

*It  is  true,  of  course,  that  the  Redmond  of  1914  was  a  much 
more  moderate  man  than  the  Redmond  of  the  Enniscorthy  meet- 
ing, and  that  the  great  Sinn  Fein  revolt  was  due  not  merely  to 
disillusion  in  regard  to  parliamentary  action,  but  to  the  fact 
that  Mr.  Redmond  had  led,  or  was  charged  with  leading,  the 
Irish  Parliamentary  party  upon  a  too  conciliatory  path. 

*  "He  acted  like  a  foreigner,"  Sir  Charles  Dilke  said  of  Parnell. 

[61] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOm) 

the  fact  is  that  from  the  first  he  contemplated  the 
spectacle  of  Anglo-Saxon  civilisation  with  a  sen- 
timent akin  to  awe.  During  the  early  years  of 
the  Parnellite  movement,  however — and  at  other 
periods  too — the  opinions  which  he  expressed 
more  than  once  with  regard  to  the  relations  be- 
tween Ireland  and  England  were  virtually  those 
of  a  separatist  of  Parnell's  type;  nor  did  he  ever 
advocate  a  return  of  the  Irish  party  to  the  wholly 
loyalist  position  occupied  by  Isaac  Butt  in  the 
\  'seventies.  There  was,  in  practice,  no  shadow  of 
disagreement  between  Parnell  and  his  able  young 
lieutenant. 

Moreover,  in  one  important  sense  Mr.  Red- 
mond's general  standpoint  in  politics  was  nearer 
to  Parnell's  than  the  standpoint  of  Mr.  John  Dil- 
lon, Michael  Davitt  and  several  other  colleagues. 
5  Like  Parnell,  Mr.  Redmond  scarcely  shared  the 
I  social  revolutionary  spirit  which  inspired  much 
'  of  the  agitation  of  the  Land  League.     This  is  not 
to  say  that  he  did  not  recognise  and  feel  for  the 
misery  of  the  small  Irish  tenant  farmer,  or  that 
he  did  not  desire  the  establishment  of  a  peasant 
proprietary  with,  to  that  extent,  the  downfall  of 
the  landlords  in  Ireland.    But  he  was  not  in  his 
element  in  what  took  on,  in  effect,  the  character 
of  a  social  revolution.    He  was  not  a  democratic 
leveller  like  Davitt.     Had  Ireland  been  a  self- 

[62] 


EARLY  POLITICAL  LIFE 

governing  country  in  the  early  'eighties,  and  Mr. 
Redmond  Prime  Minister,  we  may  be  sure  that 
he  would  have  proposed  a  reform  of  the  land 
system ;  equally  sure,  however,  that  he  would  have 
discouraged,  taken  action  against,  many  of  the 
methods  adopted  by  the  agrarian  agitators.  It 
may  be  remarked  that  Michael  Davitt,  who  was 
the  true  father  of  the  Land  League,  always  sus- 
pected Mr.  Redmond  of  being  a  reactionary  on 
the  economic  and  social  side — not,  of  course,  on 
the  political.  His  views  on  social  and  economic 
questions  as  they  affected  Ireland  were  indeed 
rather  those  of  an  English  liberal  than  of  an 
/  Irish  revolutionary.  When  men  like  Parnell  and 
Redmond  identified  themselves  with  radical  en- 
terprises like  the  Land  League  it  was  partly  for 
the  purpose  of  maintaining  a  national  unity  of 
means  and  ends,  and  partly  because  such  enter- 
prises served  to  intimidate  British  statesmen  and 
made  Ireland  difficult  for  them  to  govern,  thus 
improving  the  prospects  of  Home  Rule.  ^ 

*  John  Devoy,  the  Clan-na-Gael  leader,  offered  in  1878  to  sup- 
port Parnell  on  condition  that  for  the  Federal  demand  of  Isaac 
Butt  should  be  substituted  a  general  declaration  in  favour  of 
Irish  self-government.  The  condition  was  accepted  by  the  par- 
liamentary party.  Parnell  was,  at  least  at  first,  a  revolutionist 
working  with  constitutional  weapons.  A  United  Ireland  was 
Pamell's  sine  qua  non,  and  hence  he  refused  to  quarrel  either 
with  the  neo-Fenians  or  the  extremist  agrarian  agitators.  Barry 
O'Brien,  "Life  of  Parnell." 

168] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

Mr.  Redmond's  first  experience  as  a  member 
of  the  House  of  Commons  was  as  exciting  as  his 
first  experience  on  an  Irish  platform.  At  the 
very  moment  of  his  election  a  great  Parliament- 
ary fight  was  in  progress.  The  occasion  was  the 
passage  of  Gladstone's  Coercion  Bill,  which  was 
being  sternly  resisted  by  some  twenty  Parnell- 
ites.  Mr.  Redmond  dashed  across  from  Wexford 
to  do  his  share,  and  arrived  weary  and  travel- 
stained  at  Westminster.  Parnell  had  been  pur- 
suing the  policy  of  obstruction,  and  the  House, 
after  a  continuous  sitting  of  24  hours,  was  in  the 
worst  of  tempers.  Nine  weeks  altogether  had 
been  spent  on  the  Bill;  a  nine  weeks'  coercion 
struggle  which  as  Mr.  T.  P.  O'Connor  afterwards 
said  made  the  Irish  Party,  and  thereby  gave 
unity,  strength,  cohesion  to  the  great  struggle 
for  the  restoration  of  national  rights. 

When  Redmond  arrived,  Parnell  himself  was 
speaking  in  face  of  a  hundred  turbulent  and 
noisy  Englishmen.  Never  had  Redmond  been 
more  impressed  by  that  pale- featured,  calm  aris- 
tocrat. Then  suddenly  the  end  came.  Mr.  Brand, 
the  speaker,  whose  business  it  was  to  look  after 
the  rules  of  the  House  and  see  that  members  ob- 
served them,  acted  with  the  courage  of  despair. 
He  broke  the  rules  himself  by  announcing  that 
the  debate  was  at  an  end.    Whereupon  Redmond, 

[  64  ] 


EARLY  POLITICAL  LIFE 

who  was  watching  the  proceedings  from  behind 
the  Bar,  saw  all  his  future  colleagues  file  out  of 
the  Chamber  in  protest.  They  were  back  the  next 
day,  when  Mr.  Redmond  took  his  seat  and  the 
oath.  Mr.  Gladstone  rose  to  deal  with  the  state 
of  Irish  aflFairs.  Parnell  objected,  and  the  speaker 
overruled  the  objection.  The  Irish  leader  ob- 
jected a  second  time,  and  was  named  for  disre- 
garding the  authority  of  the  Speaker.  Mr.  Glad- 
stone moved  Parnell's  suspension.  The  Irish  re- 
fused to  take  part  in  the  division,  and  for  this  re- 
fusal were  turned  out  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
addressing  the  Speaker  as  they  went  each  in  turn. 
Mr.  Redmond  was  proud  of  the  unique  experi- 
ence. "I  took  my  seat,"  he  said,  "made  my 
maiden  speech,  and  was  expelled  by  force,  all  on 
the  same  day." 

Presently,  Mr.  Redmond,  after  having  taken 
his  full  share  in  the  movement  of  opposition  to 
the  Government,  appeared  in  the  character  of  a 
constructive  statesman.  Events  were  moving  in 
the  direction  of  a  reconciliation  between  the  Irish 
and  Liberals,  and  the  Government  seemed  ready 
to  acknowledge  that  coercion  had  failed.  Par- 
nell, who  had  been  imprisoned,  was  released,  and 
there  was  an  understanding  that  the  Land  Act 
of  1 88 1  would  be  given  a  fair  trial  by  the  League. 
At  the  same  time  Mr.  Redmond  introduced  a  new 

[66] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

Land  Bill  on  behalf  of  the  Party,  which  proposed 
amendments  of  the  1881  Act  in  favour  of  the 
tenants ;  and  Gladstone  replied  to  his  speech  with 
a  promise  of  concession.  The  hopes  of  moderate 
men  were,  however,  dashed  to  the  ground  by  the 
political  murder  (May,  1882)  of  Mr.  Burke  and 
Lord  Frederick  Cavendish;  and  although  no  re- 
sponsibility for  the  terrible  deed  in  Phoenix  Park 
could  be  attached  to  Mr.  Parnell,  the  Government 
had  again  to  resort  to  coercion.  "The  Times/' 
wrote  Mr.  T.  P.  O'Connor,  "suggested  that  the 
Irish  population  of  England,  unarmed  and  inno- 
cent, should  be  massacred  for  a  crime  which  they 
abhorred,  and  that  the  Irish  political  leaders 
should  be  made  responsible,  for  a  catastrophe 
which  had  dashed  all  their  hopes." 

The  same  newspaper  charged  Mr.  Redmond 
with  having  approved  of  the  murder  of  Lord 
Frederick  Cavendish.  The  misunderstanding 
arose  as  follows : 

"I  was  at  Manchester  (to  quote  Mr.  Redmond's 
own  account)  on  the  night  of  the  Phoenix  Park 
murder,  and  about  to  address  a  meeting,  when  an 
incomplete  account  of  the  affair  was  thrust  into 
my  hand  ...  I  went  to  the  police  station  to 
make  enquiries,  but  they  would  not  tell  me  any- 
thing. I  made  a  speech  condemning  the  murder 
of  Cavendish,  and  saying  that  the  Government 

[66]. 


EARLY  POLITICAL  LIFE 

were  the  real  cause  of  the  crime.  The  Times 
reported  my  speech  with  the  comment  that  I  said 
nothing  about  Burke.  Parnell  spoke  to  me  on 
the  subject.  I  told  him  that  I  did  not  know  that 
Burke  had  been  killed  when  I  made  the  speech. 
'Then  write  to  The  Times  and  say  so/  he  re- 
plied. I  wrote  to  The  Times,  but  they  didn't  pub- 
lish the  letter." 
/  Mr.  Redmond  at  this  time  was  one  of  the  Irish 
Party  Whips,  and  his  suavity  and  excellent  man- 
ner stood  him  in  good  stead  in  these  capacities. 
He  was  not  a  personal  favourite  with  the  leader ; 
but  Parnell's  favourites  were  few — ^John  Red- 
mond's brother,  William,  was  among  them.  The 
organisers  of  the  movement,  however,  appreci- 
ated Mr.  Redmond's  good  sense  and  caution,  and 
gave  him  plenty  of  work  as  a  speaker  on  English 
platforms.  With  his  other  colleagues  Mr.  Red- 
mond was  popular,  although  one  of  them  after- 
wards said — it  was  during  the  "split"  in  the 
Party — that  he  had  always  been  a  "cold-hearted 
young  gentleman."  His  more  gentle  upbringing 
may  have  kept  him  aloof  from  many  of  his  col- 
leagues. 

In  the  winter  of  1882  Mr.  Redmond  went  to 
Australia  and  America,  at  the  request  of  Par- 
nell, in  order  to  collect  funds  for  the  Land 
League.    The  unpopularity  of  the  Irish,  due  to 

[67] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

the  Phoenix  Park  murders,  had  spread  to  the 
British  colonies,  and  the  young  Nationalist  emis- 
sary at  first  received  a  chilling  reception  from  the 
Australian  public.  Sir  Henry  Parkes,  the  Prime 
Minister,  proposed  that  he  should  be  expelled, 
and  all  the  respectable  people  who  had  promised 
to  support  the  cause  kept  away  from  the  meet- 
ings. Even  the  priests,  except  some  Jesuits,  who 
were  friendly  to  an  old  Clongowes  boy,  kept 
away.  However,  the  Irish  workingmen  stood 
by  Mr.  Redmond  and  "kept  him  going  until  tele- 
grams arrived  exculpating  the  Parliamentary 
party."  Ultimately,  having  collected  £15,000,  he 
proceeded  to  America,  where  he  was  received 
with  open  arms  by  the  Fenians.  "Without  the 
Fenians,"  he  afterwards  told  Mr.  Barry  O'Brien, 
"we  could  have  done  nothing."  There  was  a 
great  meeting  at  the  Opera  House,  Chicago,  at 
which  Boyle  O'Reilly,  an  exiled  patriot  and  revo- 
lutionist, took  the  chair.  "It  was  a  grand  sight. 
It  was  grand  to  see  the  Irish  united  as  they  were 
then.  I  was  escorted  to  the  meeting  by  the  Gov- 
ernor and  the  Mayor,  and  the  streets  were  lined 
with  soldiers  who  presented  arms  as  we  passed."^ 
Mr.  Redmond's  tour  lasted  over  two  years.  He 
was  accompanied  on  the  Australian  part  of  it 
by  his  brother,  William  Redmond,  who  had  now 

*  Barry  O'Brien,  "Life  of  Parnell." 

[68] 


EARLY  POLITICAL  LIFE 

overcome  his  social  prejudices  and  become  one  of 
the  keenest  adherents  of  the  ParnelHte  movement. 
John  and  William  both  married  before  their  re- 
turn to  Ireland.  The  meeting  with  their  future 
wives  took  place  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Michael 
Dalton,  of  Sidney.  John  Redmond  married  the 
daughter,  and  William  Redmond  the  niece,  of 
Mr.  Dalton.  The  unions  were  very  happy  ones.^ 
On  his  return  home,  John  Redmond  completed 
his  terms  at  King's  Inn,  Dublin,  and  at  Gray's 
Inn,  London;  but  the  turn  of  events  in  politics 
kept  him  occupied  in  other  direction  than  that 
of  the  law.  Gladstone  had  been  converted  to 
Home  Rule  and  was  about  to  stake  the  fortunes 
of  the  Liberal  Party  upon  a  forthcoming  meas- 
ure of  Irish  self-government.  The  Bill  was  in- 
troduced in  1886,  and  Mr.  Redmond,  in  common 
with  the  whole  Irish  Party,  accepted  its  terms, 
if  not  as  a  final  settlement  of  the  Irish  question, 
at  least  as  a  measure  that  approached  a  satisfac- 
tion of  Nationalist  desires.  The  Bill  of  1886,  by 
excluding  Irish  members  from  Westminster,  fell 
under  no  suspicion  of  being  that  "Federal  solu- 
tion" which  Butt  and  the  loyal  Home  Rulers  had 
advocated  and  with  which  the  neo-Fenian  sup- 
porters of  Parnell  refused  to  have  anything  to 

*  Mr.  Redmond's  second  wife,  whom  he  married  in  his  middle 
age,  was  Miss  Beazley,  of  Kiltenbarry. 

[69] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

do.  Both  in  1886  and  1893  Mr.  Redmond  was 
a  separatist  to  the  extent  that  he  upheld  Ire- 
land's right  to  the  status  of  a  Dominion  in  the 
Empire;  and  he  believed  that  the  Home  Rule 
Bill  of  1886  sufficiently  satisfied  that  right. 
While,  however,  he  still  proposed  that  Irish  af- 
fairs and  British  affairs  should  be  disassociated 
as  far  as  possible,  he  no  longer — if  he  had  ever 
done  so — envisaged  the  future  of  Ireland  as  that 
of  a  sovereign  State,  wholly  "on  its  own"  in  the 
world.  Many  anti-English  speeches  of  his  of  this 
and  a  later  date  may  be  quoted,  but  after  his 
visit  to  Australia  nothing  ever  fell  from  his  lips 
that  was  truly  inconsistent  with  the  theory  of  a 
liberal  Imperialism.  He  spoke  of  Ireland  as  be- 
coming independent  of  England,  but  the  ideal 
that  he  had  in  mind  was  that  of  interdependence, 
equally  in  relation  to  England  and  the  self-gov- 
erning Colonies. 

Gladstone  failed  to  pass  his  Home  Rule  Bill 
through  the  House  of  Commons,  and  the  return 
of  the  Conservatives  to  power  was  accompanied 
by  a  revival  of  agrarian  disturbances  in  Ireland. 
Mr.  Balfour  became  Chief-Secretary  and  insti- 
tuted a  coercive  regime.  Among  his  victims  was 
Mr.  Redmond,  who  in  1888  went  to  prison  for 
the  first  and  only  time  in  his  life.  The  offence 
was  that  of  using  the  language  of  intimidation 

[70] 


EARLY  POLITICAL  LIFE 

against  a  certain  landlord  of  the  name  of  Colonel 
Walker,  in  a  speech  at  Scarawalsh.  Mr.  Red- 
mond, who  conducted  his  own  defence  in  the 
police  court  at  Ferns,  argued  that  he  had  been 
unfairly  interpreted.  Colonel  Walker's  eviction 
of  a  tenant  was  the  subject  of  his  speech;  this 
injustice,  said  Mr.  Redmond,  would  cry  out 
against  the  Colonel  wherever  he  went,  no  new 
tenant  would  take  the  farm,  and  the  Colonel 
would  have  arrayed  against  him  the  united  hos- 
tility of  the  entire  people  among  whom  he  lived. 
Mr.  Redmond  argued  in  the  police  court  that  he 
had  used  the  language  of  prophecy,  not  of  intimi- 
dation, but  it  was  in  vain.  He  suffered  five 
weeks'  imprisonment  as  an  ordinary  criminal, 
sleeping  on  a  plank  bed  at  night  and  in  the  day 
time  exercising  among  the  pickpockets  or  study- 
ing the  Bible — the  only  book  allowed  to  him! 

The  year  1889  was  a  quiet  one,  so  far  as  Mr. 
Redmond  was  concerned.  Hope  ran  high  in  Irish 
politics,  and  the  co-operation  of  the  English  Lib- 
erals in  the  Home  Rule  party  grew  more  close 
than  ever.  Ireland  was  wholly  united  under  Par- 
nell  and  the  breakdown  of  the  charge  against  the 
Irish  leader  in  connection  with  the  murders  in 
the  Phoenix  Park  created  an  extraordinary  ju- 
bilation.   Mr.  Balfour's  coercion  regime  contin- 

[71] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

ued,  but  its  days  were  evidently  numbered.  The 
next  year  disaster  overtook  the  Irish  cause. 

In  November  Captain  O'Shea,  a  former  Irish 
member,  filed  a  petition  for  divorce  on  the 
grounds  of  his  wife's  adultery  with  Parnell;  the 
suit  was  undefended,  and  the  Court  granted  a 
decree  nisi  for  the  separation  of  Captain  and 
Mrs.  O'Shea.  The  proceedings  had  been  pend- 
ing for  some  months,  during  which  time  it  was 
commonly  assumed  that,  whatever  the  verdict  of 
the  Court,  Parnell's  political  position  would  be 
unaltered. 

On  November  i8th,  a  day  after  the  verdict,  the 
National  League  held  a  meeting  in  Dublin.  Mr. 
Redmond  presided,  and  all  the  speakers — includ- 
ing some  men  who  afterwards  repudiated  Par- 
nell— declared  for  the  status  quo.  Nothing  had 
happened  to  necessitate  a  change  of  leadership. 
Messrs.  William  O'Brien,  Dillon  and  O'Connor, 
who  were  in  America,  signified  their  assent  to 
the  action  of  the  League.  Mr.  Redmond  then  vis- 
ited Mr.  Healy  and  arranged  for  a  great  Parnell- 
ite  demonstration  in  the  Leinster  Hall,  Dublin. 
He  was  afterwards  accused  of  having  acted  with 
a  too  great  precipitancy  in  so  committing  the 
Party  to  an  unconditional  support  of  Parnell ;  but, 
in  fact,  a  glance  at  the  speeches  which  were  de- 
livered  at   the   historic    Dublin   demonstration 

[  72  ] 


EARLY  POLITICAL  LIFE 

shows  that  on  the  face  of  things  no  difference 
whatever  existed  between  the  attitude  of  Red- 
mond and  that  of  the  men  who  a  few  weeks 
later  were  themselves,   under  the  direction  of 
Gladstone,  to  drive  Parnell  out  of  public  life. 
Mr.  Redmond  said  no  more  than  the  others^' 
namely,  that  Parnell's  statesmanship  was  essen- 
tial to  the  Home  Rule  cause.     But  already  on 
the  side  of  the  Liberal  alHes  of  Home  Rule  voices 
of  dissent  had  been  raised,  and  on  the  24th  of  No- 
vember Gladstone  hinted  that  his  Party  had  been 
/greatly  embarrassed  by  the  proceedings  in  the 
/  Divorce  Court  and  might  lose  Noncomformist. 
I  support  at  the  General  Election  if  Parnell  failed 
I  to  retire.    The  Irish  Party,  however,  met  at  West- 
!   minster  and  re-elected  Parnell  Chairman;  next 
day  they  were  confronted  by  Gladstone's  letter 
to  Mr.  Morley,  which  was,  in  effect,  a  declaration 
that  the  Liberal  leader  would  be  unable  to  work 
any  longer  with  Parnell. 

Mr.  Redmond  had  no  hesitations.  He  was  not 
averse  to  private  negotiations  for  an  arrange- 
ment under  which — in  view  of  the  English  situa- 
tion— Parnell  would  temporarily  retire  from  the 
leadership.  But  he  could  not  consider  such  a 
course  as  the  open  repudiation  of  an  Irish  leader 
by  Irishmen  at  the  demand  of  an  English  party. 
Gladstone's  letter  had  been  published  in  the  Press 

[73] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

and  amounted  to  nothing  less  than  an  ultimatum. 
A  majority  of  the  Irish  members,  however,  pre- 
pared to  bow  to  the  Nonconformist  conscience. 
Although  re-election  to  the  Chair  had  been  unan- 
imous, the  Irish  leader  knew  that  it  was  only  upon 
a  handful  of  his  followers  he  could  really  rely, 
and  among  these  were  John  and  William  Red- 
mond, Colonel  Nolan,  Mr.  J.  J.  Kelly  and  Mr. 
Leamy.  Parnell  particularly  appreciated  the  de- 
votion of  William  Redmond,  for  he  recognised 
that  it  was  wholly  personal.  William  Redmond 
declared  that,  whatever  might  be  the  question  of 
political  expediency,  he  would  remain  faithful, 
and  Parnell  felt  consoled  and  encouraged.  "You 
were  always,"  he  said,  "one  of  the  most  single- 
minded  and  attached  of  my  colleagues." 
'  The  Party  met  to  reconsider  the  situation  in 
Committee  Room  XV,  and  there  Parnell — al- 
though never  had  he  given  a  finer  display  of  his 
genius  for  leadership — suffered  defeat.  In  the 
debates  that  then  took  place  Mr.  Redmond's  own 
ability  won  for  the  first  time  a  proper  recogni- 
tion. Lord  Morley  writes  in  his  "Life  of  Glad- 
stone" concerning  the  proceedings  in  the  Commit- 
tee Room  that  "no  case  was  ever  better  opened 
at  Westminster  than  in  the  three  speeches  made 
on  the  first  day  by  Mr.  Sexton  and  Mr.  Healy  on 
the  one  side  and  Mr.  Redmond  on  the  other."    In 

[74] 


EARLY  POLITICAL  LIFE 

gravity,  dignity,  acute  perception  and  that  good 
faith  which  is  the  soul  of  real  as  distinct  from 
specious  debate,  the  Parliamentary  critic  recog- 
nises them  all  as  of  the  first  order.  Justin  Mac- 
Carthy,  himself  an  anti-Parnellite,  wrote  of  Red- 
mond that  "he  took  the  leading  part  on  the  side 
of  the  minority.  He  became  the  foremost  cham- 
pion of  ParneH's  leadership.  The  position  seemed 
to  him  in  the  nature  of  things.  I  well  remember 
the  ability  and  the  eloquence  which  he  displayed 
in  these  debates  and  the  telling  manner  in  which 
he  put  his  argument  and  his  appeals;  and  the 
course  he  took  was  all  the  more  to  his  credit,  be- 
cause Parnell  had  never  singled  him  out  as  an 
object  of  special  favour,  and  indeed,  in  the  opin- 
ion of  many  of  us,  had  not  done  full  justice  to 
his  services  in  the  House  of  Commons." 

Mr.  Redmond,  like  Parnell  himself,  put  the 
Parnellite  case  upon  a  basis  of  cold  reason. 
"When  we  are  asked,"  he  exclaimed,  "to  sell  our 
leader  to  preserve  the  English  alliance,  it  seems 
to  me  we  are  bound  to  enquire  what  we  are  get- 
ting for  the  price  we  are  paying."  Parnell's  tac- 
tics was  to  put  the  moral  question  aside,  and  even 
the  question  of  loyalty,  and  to  ask,  "If  I  retire, 
will  you  (my  opponents)  be  able  to  secure  satis- 
factory guarantees  from  Gladstone  and  the  Lib- 

[75] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

erals  with  regard  to  the  terms  of  the  forthcoming 
Home  Rule  Bill?" 

A  prospective  bargain  of  this  sort  led  to  the 
celebrated  Boulogne  negotiations,  in  which  Mr. 
Redmond  played  a  prominent  part.  He  cabled 
to  Mr.  O'Brien  and  Mr.  Dillon,  who  were  in 
America,  that  an  accommodation  might  be  ar- 
ranged were  a  meeting  held  between  Mr.  O'Brien 
and  Parnell.  Mr.  O'Brien  left  America  and 
travelled  to  Boulogne,  which  was  the  place  ap- 
pointed for  the  Conference.  Mr.  Redmond  ac- 
companied Parnell  to  France.  It  was  first  pro- 
posed that  Parnell  should  retire  from  the  leader- 
ship on  the  terms  that  he  should  have  the  right  to 
nominate  his  successor.  Mr.  O'Brien  and  Mr. 
Dillon  were  the  principal  candidates,  and  of  the 
two  Parnell  preferred  Mr.  O'Brien,  though  he 
doubted  if  either  was  capable  of  coping  with  Glad- 
stone. 

Throughout  the  negotiations  Mr.  Redmond's 
desire  was  to  effect  a  settlement  by  every  means 
short  of  an  absolute  surrender  of  Parnellite  prin- 
ciple; Mr.  O'Brien  on  his  part  was  equally  con- 
ciliatory. Parnell's  own  enigmatic  attitude  was, 
however,  interpreted  by  Mr.  O'Brien  and  Mr. 
Redmond  in  opposite  ways.  Mr.  O'Brien  thought 
that  Parnell  listened  seriously  to  the  proposals 
for  his  retirement  and  intended  to  fall  in  with 

[76] 


EARLY  POLITICAL  LIFE 

the  schemes  of  the  "peace  makers."  Mr.  Red- 
mond said,  on  the  other  hand,  *'I  feel  that  O'Brien 
and  myself  are  being  treated  like  a  pair  of  chil- 
dren" and  refused  to  continue  negotiations  ad  in- 
finitum. Parnell  returned  to  his  position  of  Com- 
mittee Room  XV,  and  declined  to  treat  on  the 
question  of  leadership  except  in  connection  with 
Liberal  guarantees  regarding  the  next  Home 
Rule  Bill.  The  Boulogne  "conversations"  finally 
broke  down.  They  furnished  the  matter  for  dis- 
pute and  recrimination  between  rival  Irish  poli- 
ticians for  many  a  long  year,  but  Mr.  Redmond's 
zeal  for  peace  in  them  was  never  disputed. 


[77] 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  MANTLE  OF  PARNELL 

THE  Boulogne  negotiations  failed  in  189 1  and 
Parnell  died  nine  months  later.  In  the  in- 
tervening period  he  fought  a  losing  battle  with 
a  desperation  unexampled  in  modern  politics. 
Against  a  combination  of  the  Gladstonians,  the 
priests  and  the  agrarian  party  his  appeal  was  to 
romantic  Ireland,  to  the  fighting  Nationalists,  the 
neo-Fenians  of  the  early  'eighties,  and  he  rallied 
these  to  his  side  with  the  cry  of  "No  English  dic- 
tation." 

Mr.  Redmond's  share  in  the  final  struggle  was 
slight.  Indeed,  he  abstained  from  attending  par- 
tisan demonstrations  during  the  summer  of  1891. 
Anti-Parnellite  orators  taunted  him  with  having 
"backed  the  wrong  horse,"  and  even  suggested 
that  he  was  reconsidering  his  position  in  regard 
to  Parnell.  The  taunt  was  unfounded.  A  certain 
pessimism  in  regard  to  Irish  affairs  may  have 
settled  upon  the  young  and  ardent  politician  for 
a  while,  and,  for  the  rest,  domestic  concerns  ac- 
counted for  his  inactivity.     He  had  no  thought 

[78] 


THE  MANTLE  OF  PARNELL 

of  joining  the  anti-Parnellites,  though  he  may 
have  had  a  thought  of  abandoning  public  Hfe  al- 
together. "I  am  doing  my  best,"  he  had  written 
to  Mr.  O'Brien  early  in  1891,  "but  I  fear  my 
influence  is  less  than  ever." 

The  stimulus  of  personal  loyalty  to  Parnell  fi- 
nally conquered  this  depression,  and  he  found 
himself  fit  to  face  the  tragic  winter  of  189 1-2  with 
a  strong  if  sad  heart.  He  was  one  of  those  sum- 
moned to  Brighton  by  Mrs.  Parnell  after  her  hus- 
band's death,  and  the  arrangements  for  the  na- 
tional funeral  were  put  into  his  hands.  He  shared 
with  all  that  was  best  in  Nationalist  Ireland  the 
deep  emotion  of  that  October  of  189 1 : — 

Ah,  the  sad  autumn  day, 
When  the  last  sad  troop  came 
Swift  down  the  ancient  way, 
Keening  a  chieftain's  name. 

Grey  hope  was  there  and  dread 
Anger  and  love  in  tears; 
They  mourned  the  dear  and  dead 
Dirge  of  the  ruined  years. 

A  mother,  and  forget. 
Nay,  all  her  children's  fate 
Ireland  remembers  yet 
With  love  insatiate.* 

*Froin  "Parnel,"  by  Lionel  Johnson. 
[79] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

The  Irish  literary  movement  was  in  its  in- 
fancy, and  poets,  who  had  hitherto  given  little 
attention  to  politics,  were  enthusiastic  for  the 
Parnellite  cause  that  had  now  been  entrusted  to 
John  Redmond.  He  went  among  the  young  poets 
of  New  Ireland — Katharine  Tynan,  W.  B.  Yeats, 
Dora  Shorter,  Maud  Gonne — and  delighted  them 
with  his  simplicity,  eloquence  and  charm  of  man- 
ner. 

Presently  the  new  leader  issued  a  Manifesto 
which  thrilled  the  heart  of  youth.  "On  the 
threshold  of  the  tomb  the  leader  whom  we  mourn 
defined  our  duty  in  these  memorable  words:  'If 
I  were  dead  and  gone  to-morrow,  the  men  who 
are  fighting  English  influence  in  Irish  public  life 
would  fight  on  still.  They  would  still  be  inde- 
pendent Nationalists,  they  would  still  believe  in 
the  future  of  Ireland  as  a  nation :  and  they  would 
still  protest  that  it  was  not  by  taking  orders  from 
an  English  member  that  Ireland's  future  could  be 
saved,  protected  or  secured.'  Fellow-country- 
men, let  it  be  to  the  glory  of  our  race  at  home  and 
abroad  to  act  up  to  the  spirit  of  this  message. 
God  Save  Ireland." 

A  very  few  days  after  Parnell's  funeral  Mr. 
Redmond  accepted  the  position  of  leader  of  that 
minority  of  the  Parliamentarians  who  had  re- 
fused to  desert  Parnell.    His  principal  colleagues 

[80] 


THE  MANTLE  OF  PARNELL 

were  Mr.  T.  C.  Harrington,  Mr.  Edmund  Leamy 
and  an  ex-Fenian,  Mr.  O'Kelly.  An  extreme 
anti-Englishism  distinguished  the  utterances  of 
his  followers — some  of  whom  deliberately  sought 
to  break  up  the  constitutional  Parliamentary  agi- 
tation and  recreate  a  movement  of  physical  force. 
Others,  under  stress  of  emotion,  had  lost  all  sense 
of  political  direction.  Among  the  latter  was 
young  William  Redmond,  though  we  know  from 
the  manner  of  WilHam  Redmond's  death  in  the 
present  War  how  little  dominated  by  race  hatred 
was  this  generous  soul. 

The  elder  Redmond  preferred  to  refrain  from 
similar  violences.  Indeed,  he  now  more  than  ever 
before  displayed  his  characteristic  virtues  of  dig- 
nity and  good  manners.  A  critic  hostile  to  all  the 
Parliamentarians  once  alluded  to  the  "Split"  as 
the  "sweeping-brush"  era  in  Irish  politics,  but  ad- 
mitted that  none  of  its  "foul  memories"  spoiled 
John  Redmond's  name.  "He  touched  with  per- 
fect good-humour  even  the  quarrels  of  his  rivals." 
Nevertheless  his  little  party  met  with  one  disaster 
after  another,  and  its  representation  at  Westmin- 
ster was  at  one  time  reduced  to  the  ludicrous  fig- 
ure of  nine.  Mr.  Redmond  offered  himself  as  a 
candidate  for  the  great  city  of  Cork  and  was 
routed  hopelessly.  Later  on,  not  without  the  help 
of  Unionist  votes,  he  found  a  refuge  in  Water- 

[81] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

ford,  the  city  which  was  to  remain  faithful  to 
him  during  the  remainder  of  his  life  and  after  his 
death  chose  his  son  as  its  representative. 

It  was  certainly  a  curious  position  which  he 
now  occupied,  depending  as  he  did  for  succour 
not  only  upon  the  neo-Fenian  anti-Parliamenta- 
rians, but  also  in  some  degree  upon  Irish  Union- 
ists, who  inclined  to  back  the  Parnellite  minority. 
"Extremes  meet,"  and  the  Unionists  forgave 
John  Redmond  his  declarations  in  favour  of  an 
independent  Parliament  out  of  consideration  for 
his  hostility  to  Gladstone — the  man  whom  they 
hated  most — the  political  priests,  and  the  agra- 
rians. He  won  encomiums  from  both  Irish  and 
English  Unionists — a  fact  to  which  the  anti-Par- 
nellites  did  not  fail  to  call  attention!  Here  was 
a  sign,  said  they,  that  Parnellism  had  entered 
upon  purely  destructive  courses. 

The  second  Home  Rule  Bill  was  now  about  to 
be  introduced,  and  the  reactionaries  everywhere 
anticipated  that  Mr.  Redmond,  aided  by  the  Irish- 
Americans  (whom  he  had  recently  visited), 
would  give  both  it  and  Gladstone  their  coup  de 
grace.  They  were  disappointed.  In  the  debates 
and  the  Bill  of  1893  Redmond  gained  a  reputa- 
tion not  only  for  oratory  but  for  constructive 
statesmanship.  Sir  Henry  Lacy,  the  famous  Par- 
liamentary critic,  expressed  the  general  opinion 

[82] 


THE  MANTLE  OF  PARNELL 

when  he  declared  that  Redmond's  "style"  based 
itself  upon  a  substratum  of  solid  knowledge, 
sound  common  sense  and  a  statesmanlike  capac- 
ity to  review  a  complicated  situation.  Not  that 
the  Bill  which  was  finally  carried  in  the  House  of 
Commons  by  a  majority  of  43  votes  met  with  his 
ardent  approval.  He  described  it  as  "like  a  toad, 
ugly  and  venomous,  which  wore  yet  a  precious 
jewel  in  its  head." 

In  substance  the  Bill  did  not  differ  greatly 
from  the  proposals  of  1886,  with  the  exception 
that  an  Irish  delegation  of  80  members  was  to 
be  entitled  to  attend  at  Westminster  whenever 
Irish  affairs  were  under  discussion.  Mr.  Red- 
mond had  supported  the  proposals  of  1886.  His 
criticisms  of  the  proposals  of  1893  were  able  and 
sincere;  we  may,  nevertheless,  suppose  that  they 
were  fewer  than  would  have  been  the  case  had 
his  position  been  one  of  greater  power.  As  the 
leader  of  a  band  of  nine  men  only  his  Parlia- 
mentary action  could  not  have  a  decisive  influ- 
ence. The  House  of  Lords  had  in  any  event  de- 
termined to  reject  the  Bill,  and  this  it  did  on 
September  8th. 

The  next  year  Gladstone  retired  from  public 
life,  and,  with  the  advent  of  Lord  Rosebery  as 
Liberal  Prime  Minister,  the  Redmondite  posi- 
tion was  considerably  strengthened — morally,  at 

[88] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

least — for,  while  Gladstone  had  a  great  name 
among  the  Irish  and  was  genuinely  trusted,  Lord 
Rosebery  had  no  claim  to  the  trust  of  National- 
ists. The  new  Premier  at  once  announced  that 
the  Liberal  Party  had  weakened  upon  the  sub- 
ject of  Home  Rule.  He  said  that  England,  the 
"predominant  partner,"  must  first  be  convinced 
of  the  desirability  of  Home  Rule  before  the  Liber- 
als could  renew  any  efforts  at  legislation.  There 
should  be  a  Home  Rule  majority  in  Parliament 
independent  of  Irish  votes.  He  proposed  as  an 
alternative  the  substitution  of  local  self-Govern- 
ment,  which  Redmond  at  once  denounced  as  a 
compromise  on  a  compromise.  In  spite  of  Lord 
Rosebery's  declarations,  the  anti-Parnellite  Na- 
tionalists continued  to  support  the  Government, 
for  the  not  unobscure  reason  that  their  funds 
were  being  largely  supplemented  by  the  donations 
of  rich  English  Liberals.  Lord  Rosebery's  atti- 
tude, however,  did  not  save  the  old  Gladstonian 
party  from  a  terrible  defeat  at  the  elections  of 
1895,  and,  as  may  be  imagined,  the  general  ef- 
fect of  these  events  in  Ireland  was  a  decline  in 
the  reputation  of  the  anti-Parnellite  leaders,  who 
were,  moreover,  bitterly  divided  among  them- 
selves. It  was  now  certain  that  very  strong  ef- 
forts towards  a  reconciliation  of  the  rival  Na- 
tionalist groups  would  be  made,  and  that  John 

[84] 


THE  MANTLE  OF  PARNELL 

Redmond — as  the  man  who  stood  clear  of  any 
responsibility  for  the  disastrous  and  discredited 
Liberal  alliance — would  be  the  strongest  candi- 
date for  the  Chairmanship  of  a  re-united  Party. 
On  the  occasion  of  Lord  Rosebery's  accept- 
ance of  the  Premiership  Redmond  had  issued  a 
Manifesto,  which  is  worth  quoting,  as  it  sums 
up  the  position  of  the  Parnellites  at  that  time: — 

As  if  in  mockery  of  the  hopes  that  were  excited 
in  Ireland,  the  Prime  Minister,  whose  continu- 
ance in  office  was  the  pledge  of  Home  Rule,  is 
cast  aside,  and  a  member  of  the  House  of  Lords 
appointed  in  his  stead.  In  Lord  Rosebery  and 
his  present  Cabinet  we  can  have  no  confidence, 
and  we  warn  our  fellow-countrymen  to  have 
none:  they  will  concede  just  as  much  to  Ireland 
as  she  extorts  by  organisation  among  her  people 
and  absolute  unfettered  independence  of  English 
parties  in  her  representation. 

Lord  Rosebery's  views  were  those  of  the  Im- 
perialist section  of  the  Liberal  party  of  which 
Mr.  Asquith,  the  Home  Secretary,  was  a  princi- 
pal member.  Many  years  later  Mr.  Asquith  and 
Mr.  Redmond  were  to  work  together  in  friendly 
collaboration  towards  Home  Rule.  In  1893-4, 
however,  the  two  men  came  into  conflict  more 

[85] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

than  once,  chiefly  over  the  question  of  amnesty 
for  certain  persons  who  had  been  found  guilty 
some  years  previously  of  connection  with  dyna- 
mite outrages  and  the  like.  Mr.  Redmond  urged 
that  these  men  were  not  common  criminals  and 
he  declared  further  that  no  Irishman,  however 
extreme  in  methods,  deserved  censure  if  he  had 
suffered  for  his  devotion  to  the  national  cause 
— a  generous  but,  as  after  the  rising  of  1916  he 
was  to  find  to  his  own  cost,  a  dangerous  doctrine. 
He  also  reminded  the  House  of  Commons  that 
he  had  himself,  on  the  occasion  of  his  imprison- 
ment in  the  'eighties,  been  treated  "as  a  pick- 
pocket or  an  ordinary  criminal."  The  British 
Cabinet  through  Mr.  Asquith  refused  to  hearken 
to  Mr.  Redmond's  plea,  and  the  men  had  to  serve 
the  remainder  of  their  sentence.  One  of  those 
who  survived  the  ordeal  was,  it  is  curious  to  note, 
Thomas  Clarke,  a  signatory  to  the  Republican 
manifesto  who  was  executed  in  May,  1916,  for 
participation  in  a  rising  denounced  by  Mr.  Red- 
mond himself  as  a  "criminal  enterprise." 

In  1896  there  was  a  change  in  the  leadership 
of  the  anti-Parnellite  Parliamentarians.  Mr. 
Justin  MacCarthy  retired  for  reasons  of  advanc- 
ing age,  and  Mr.  John  Dillon  occupied  the  vacant 
chair.  Subsequently  the  anti-Parnellites  met  in 
Dublin  and  proposed  a  resolution  in  favour  of 

[86] 


THE  MANTLE  OF  PARNELL 

independence  of  all  the  entanglements  of  English 
party  alliances — the  principle  for  which  Mr.  Red- 
mond had  contended.  The  anti-Parnellites,  how- 
ever, were  now  more  bitterly  divided  among 
themselves  than  ever,  Mr.  T.  M.  Healy  having 
formed  a  dissentient  group  which  would  not  ac- 
cept Mr.  Dillon's  leadership  at  any  price.  In 
1897  Mr.  Redmond,  with  a  view  to  unity,  pro- 
posed the  following  aims  as  those  suitable  to 
an  Irish  Nationalist  movement:  (i)  Home  Rule; 
(2)  Independence  of  all  Parties;  (3)  Manhood 
suffrage;  (4)  Agitation  against  the  over  taxation 
of  Ireland;  (5)  Amnesty  of  the  political  prison- 
ers; (6)  Land  Reform.  Mr.  William  O'Brien 
was  meanwhile  very  active  in  the  endeavour  to 
infuse  new  vitality  into  the  agrarian  movement 
by  the  foundation  of  the  United  Irish  League. 

But  all  parties  were  in  sad  straits,  and  the 
Unionists,  naturally  enough,  were  in  high  spirits, 
although  the  ascendancy  party  in  Ireland  could 
not  wholly  approve  of  the  aim  of  the  Balfour 
brothers,  which  was  to  kill  Home  Rule  finally  by 
kindness.  Mr.  Gerald  Balfour,  the  Chief  Secre- 
tary, working  in  close  co-operation  with  Sir  Hor- 
ace Plunkett,  set  up  what  was  called  the  Recess 
Committee,  to  which  all  parties  in  Ireland  were 
invited.  The  object  was  to  devise  means  for 
developing  Irish  agricultural  and  industrial  re- 

[87] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

sources.  While  the  Dillonites  were  very  suspi- 
cious, Mr.  Redmond  argued,  with  a  greater  faith, 
that  anything  which  tended  to  an  increase  in  the 
material  prosperity  of  the  country  could  only  in 
the  long  run  strengthen  the  demand  for  national 
self-government.  He,  therefore,  accepted  a  seat 
on  the  Recess  Committee  along  with  such  Union- 
ists as  the  O'Conor  Don  and  Lord  Mayo,  and 
was  a  signatory  of  the  famous  Report  which  led 
to  the  establishment  of  the  Department  of  Agri- 
culture and  Technical  Instruction  for  Ireland. 

In  a  similar  spirit  Mr.  Redmond  welcomed  Mr. 
Gerald  Balfour's  Local  Government  Bill  of  1898, 
which,  as  he  said  afterwards,  "made  the  Irish 
people  masters  of  all  the  finance  and  local  af- 
fairs of  Ireland,"  yet  he  had  in  his  mind  no 
thought  of  regarding  the  measure  as  in  any  sense 
a  substitute  for  the  national  demand  of  a  Parlia- 
ment with  an  Executive  responsible  to  it.  He 
even  urged  that  in  the  working  of  local  govern- 
ment more  even  than  a  proper  share  of  fair  play 
should  be  shown  to  Irish  Unionists  and  Protes- 
tants— always  with  a  view  to  disarming  the 
fears  which  this  minority  of  the  population  had 
shown  in  regard  to  Home  Rule.  Again,  he  en- 
thusiastically initiated  the  establishment  of  a  non- 
political  agitation  having  as  its  end  a  revision  of 
the  financial  arrangements  between  Ireland  and 

[88] 


THE  MANTLE  OF  PARNELL 

Great  Britain,  on  the  need  for  which  all  Irish- 
men were  agreed.  It  was  largely  owing  to  his 
energy  that  there  was  set  up  a  Commission  to 
enquire  into  the  financial  relations  between  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland.  The  report  of  the  Commis- 
sion, signed  by  English  experts  as  well  as  by  Irish 
representatives,  of  whom  Mr.  Redmond  was  one, 
showed  that  Ireland  was  being  over-taxed  to  the 
extent  of  2^  millions  per  annum. 

In  short,  during  all  these  years  of  Unionist 
Government  prior  to  the  outbreak  of  the  South 
African  War  Mr.  Redmond  succeeded  better 
than  any  of  his  rivals  for  the  Irish  leadership  in 
asserting  the  purity  and  independence  of  the  Na- 
tional cause  and,  at  the  same  time,  in  calming  the 
fears  of  those  of  his  fellow  countrymen  who  had 
looked  upon  Home  Rule  as  significant  only  of 
social  and  religious  intolerance. 

Before  the  establishment  of  the  United  Irish 
League  there  had  been  three  Nationalist  organi- 
sations— the  National  Federation  of  Mr.  Dillon's 
party,  Mr.  Redmond's  National  League  and  Mr. 
Healy's  People's  Rights  Association.  The  United 
Irish  League  made  a  fourth.  It  had  at  first  a 
purely  agrarian  end,  having  grown  out  of  the 
discontent  which  prevailed  in  the  Congested  Dis- 
tricts in  the  West  of  Ireland.  Mr.  Redmond  did 
not  at  this  time  share  Mr.  O'Brien's  eagerness  to 

[89] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

revive  the  land  agitation  in  its  old  acute  form; 
his  hope  was  rather  for  a  softening  of  the  class 
struggle.  He  had  spoken  on  the  occasion  of  the 
passing  of  the  Local  Government  Bill  of  his  de- 
sire that  the  landlords  should  assist  in  a  proper 
working  of  the  Bill — nothing,  he  thought,  would 
constitute  a  better  argument  for  Home  Rule  than 
that.  A  new  agrarian  movement  such  as  Mr. 
O'Brien  contemplated  would,  as  he  saw,  destroy 
the  prospect,  slight  though  it  was,  of  converting 
the  Irish  gentry  to  patriotic  principles.  Never- 
theless the  League  began  to  sweep  all  before  it 
at  the  first  elections  held  under  the  Local  Gov- 
ernment Act,  and  the  Parliamentary  parties 
realised  that  the  country  was  re-uniting  itself  in- 
dependently of  their  help.  As  the  General  Elec- 
tion of  19CX)  was  in  sight,  some  working  arrange- 
ment between  the  Irish  leaders  became  essential. 
Peace  in  the  end  came  quite  suddenly.  At  the 
opening  of  the  Session  of  1900  Mr.  Dillon  an- 
nounced his  resignation  of  the  office  of  Chairman 
of  the  anti-Parnellites,  and  begged  his  personal 
followers  that,  in  the  event  of  a  reunion  of  Irish 
forces,  they  would  elect  a  leader  from  the  Par- 
nellites.  After  that  the  choice  was  certain  to  fall 
upon  John  Redmond,  who  had  just  returned  from 
a  most  successful  tour  in  America,  where  he  had 
been  collecting  funds  for  a  Parnell  memorial. 

[90] 


THE  MANTLE  OF  PARNELL 

The  Irish  members  in  a  body  met  and  "in  the 
name  of  Ireland"  declared  that  divisions  were 
over,  and  that  one  united  Party  would  henceforth 
act  in  accordance  with  the  principles  and  under 
the  Constitution  of  the  Irish  Parliamentary  Party 
from  1885  to  1890. 

Mr.  Redmond's  success  was  generally  appre- 
ciated in  Ireland,  and  even  in  England — where 
the  re-union  had  aroused  sarcastic  comments, 
there  were  grudging  admissions  of  the  ability  of 
the  new  leader.  None  of  the  Irish  Members  was 
at  that  time  popular  in  England,  owing  to  the 
attitude  of  hostility  which  they  had  adopted  to- 
wards the  British  cause  in  the  South  African 
War.  The  Times,  when  alluding  to  the  pro-Boer 
spirit  in  Ireland,  argued  that  Mr.  Redmond  had 
been  elected  to  the  Chair  because  he  represented 
the  most  violent  and  irreconcilable  of  the  Nation- 
alist elements.  It  is  true  that  Mr.  Redmond  had 
suggested  in  one  speech  that  England's  difficul- 
ties abroad  might  be  Ireland's  opportunity  at 
home ;  the  context  showed,  however,  that  he  had 
no  thought  of  appealing  to  armed  force.  But 
even  while  Mr.  Redmond  made  pro-Boer  speeches 
as  strong  as  any  man's,  there  was  in  England  as 
well  as  in  Ireland  a  general,  if  unexpressed,  recog- 
nition of  his  natural  tendency  towards  modera- 
tion.   The  real  truth  was  that  Mr.  Redmond,  by 

[91] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

accepting  the  Leadership  of  the  re-united  party, 
had  broken  with  the  extremists  in  Ireland  who 
had  supported  him  since  the  split.  The  aim  of  the 
latter  had  been  the  destruction  of  the  constitu- 
tional and  Parliamentary  movement,  and,  how- 
ever much  they  may  have  honoured  the  memory 
of  Parnell,  nothing  was  further  from  their  de- 
sires than  a  return  to  the  compromise  of  the  'eigh- 
ties. 

At  the  General  Election  of  1906,  held  on  the 
issues  of  the  South  African  War,  the  Unionists 
were  returned  to  power  by  a  large  majority  over 
the  combined  forces  of  the  Liberals  and  Nation- 
alists. A  renewal  of  Home  Rule  proposals 
seemed  to  be  further  ofif  than  ever.  The  Nation- 
alist attitude  towards  the  Boer  War  had  seriously 
affected  English  feeling,  and  the  Imperialist  wing 
of  the  Liberal  party,  led  by  Lord  Rosebery,  Lord 
Haldane  and  Sir  Edward  Grey,  wished  to  cut  it- 
self off  from  all  connection,  even  in  Opposition, 
with  men  who  had  cheered  the  news  of  reverses 
to  the  British  arms, 

In  1900  Queen  Victoria,  then  in  extreme  old 
age,  took  a  fancy  to  visit  Ireland  as  a  mark  of 
appreciation  of  the  deeds  of  Irish  soldiers  in 
South  Africa.  Mr.  Redmond  and  his  colleagues 
were  unable  to  advise  that  she  should  receive 
from  Nationalist  corporations  and  public  bodies 

[92] 


THE  MANTLE  OF  PARNELL 

any  token  of  loyal  welcome.  The  position  thus 
adopted  recommended  itself  as  necessary,  for  if 
the  Queen  had  received  anything  like  an  official 
reception  from  Nationalists,  the  occasion  would 
have  been  exploited  by  the  political  opponents  of 
the  Irish  Party;  it  would  have  been  argued  that 
the  Home  Rule  demand  was  weakening,  and  that 
the  Irish  Party's  attitude  towards  the  Boer  War 
had  been  repudiated  by  the  people.  The  fact 
was  that  the  Irish  people  were  thoroughly  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  Boers,  and  Mr.  Redmond's  criti- 
cism of  the  war  erred,  from  the  popular  point  of 
view,  on  the  side  of  moderation.  He  did  not  wish 
to  offend  British  opinion  unnecessarily,  and  he 
disapproved  of  insult  being  offered  to  the  British 
Army  and  to  Irish  soldiers.  His  extremist  col- 
leagues, like  Michael  Davitt,  wholly  rejected 
every  counsel  of  expediency,  and  would  have  pre- 
ferred to  let  Home  Rule  lie  in  abeyance  for  a  cen- 
tury rather  than  abstain  from  offering  the  Boer 
Republics  whatever  help  might  be  in  their  power. 
At  the  conclusion  of  the  war  Irish  interest  con- 
centrated itself  again  upon  the  domestic  land 
problem.  Mr.  Redmond  ruled  the  Parliamenta- 
rians at  Westminster  with  great  tact  and  sympa- 
thy, and  all  the  former  warring  elements — ex- 
cept that  which  Mr.  Healy  represented — ^had 
coalesced  with  extraordinary  ease.    With      Ire- 

[93] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

land,  however,  the  man  of  the  hour  was  William 
O'Brien,  the  founder  of  the  United  Irish  League. 
Mr.  Redmond's  strength  lay  in  Parliament,  and 
in  the  management  of  those  with  whom  he  came 
into  direct  contact.  The  respect  and  admiration 
which  his  personality  won  among  the  Nationalist 
members  lasted  until  the  end  of  his  life,  and  to 
this  respect  and  admiration  enthusiasm  was  often 
added.  Nationalist  members  were  ready  to  com- 
pare Redmond  advantageously  with  Parnell,  to 
find  that  he  had  all  the  former  leader's  skill  with- 
out the  former  leader's  faults,  to  repose  on  him 
the  completest  trust.  The  country  at  large,  how- 
ever, although  it  also  trusted  Mr.  Redmond,  ex- 
tended to  others — now  to  Mr.  O'Brien,  now  to 
Michael  Davitt,  now  to  Mr.  Dillon — a  larger  trib- 
ute of  popularity.  Mr.  Redmond  did  not  aspire 
to  be  a  native  agitator,  and  when  he  accepted  the 
agrarian  programme  of  the  United  Irish  League, 
it  was  chiefly  as  a  means  to  the  political  end  of 
Irish  Parliamentary  unity.  The  League's  chief 
value  in  his  eyes  was  that  of  a  necessary  elec- 
toral organisation  which  would  re-introduce  or- 
der and  discipline  into  Nationalist  politics. 

The  Government,  by  appointing  Mr.  George 
Wyndham  as  Chief-Secretary,  signalised  its  ad- 
hesion to  a  policy  of  reform,  and  in  1902  an  im- 
portant Land  Purchase  Bill  was  introduced  into 

[  94  ] 


THE  MANTLE  OF  PARNELL 

the  House  of  Commons.  As  the  Bill  did  not 
meet  Mr.  O'Brien's  approval  the  League  issued 
orders  to  the  parliamentarians  for  its  rejection. 
Mr.  O'Brien  had  demanded  the  compulsory  buy- 
ing out  of  the  landlords;  and  the  measure  pro- 
fessed by  Mr.  Wyndham  was  designed  merely  to 
quicken  the  rate  of  purchase  under  previous 
Acts.  This  action  upon  the  part  of  the  League 
v^as  necessarily  followed  on  the  one  hand  by  ex- 
tremely violent  measures  on  the  part  of  the  agra- 
rians and,  on  the  other,  by  a  repressive  Govern- 
mental policy.  "No  less  than  ten  members  of 
Parliament  (one  or  two  of  them  with  an  exceed- 
ing ill  grace)  soon  found  themselves  within  pri- 
son walls,  and  it  was  manifest  to  all  men,  and 
most  manifest  of  all  to  Mr.  Wyndham,  that  we 
were  only  at  the  beginning  of  the  upheaval."  ^ 
Mr.  Redmond  loyally  shared  all  the  risks,  and 
was  at  one  moment  in  danger  of  being  prosecuted 
for  conspiracy  by  the  trust  which  the  landlords 
had  organised  for  self -protection. 

Then,  all  of  a  sudden,  Mr.  O'Brien  changed 
his  tactics  and  issued  directions  for  a  cessation 
of  hostilities.  As  a  result,  not  many  months  had 
passed  before  representatives  of  the  tenants  and 
landlords  were  sitting  at  a  round-table  in  Dublin 

*  "The  Olive  Branch  in  Ireland."    By  William  O'Brien. 
[95] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

in  the  endeavour  to  find  terms,  agreeable  to  both, 
out  of  which  Mr.  Wyndham  should  construct 
another  Land  Bill.  There  is  no  doubt  that  Mr. 
Redmond  welcomed  the  more  genial  atmosphere ; 
he  accepted  the  proposal  for  a  Conference  (orig- 
inally brought  forward  from  the  landlords'  side 
by  Captain  Shaw  Taylor)  in  a  spirit  of  true 
statesmanship  and  was  nominated  to  act,  along 
with  Mr.  O'Brien  and  Mr.  T.  W.  Russell,  in  the 
interests  of  the  tenants,  Mr.  Harrington,  then 
Lord  Mayor  of  Dublin,  occupying  the  chair.  The 
meetings  with  the  landlords  opened  on  December 
20th,  1902,  soon  after  Mr.  Redmond's  return 
from  a  short  American  tour. 

The  results  of  the  Conference  were  good,  al- 
though not  all  that  Mr.  O'Brien  had  demanded 
in  war  time  could  be  conceded  at  the  peace  nego- 
tiations. The  landlord  representation  agreed  up- 
on the  desirability  of  peasant  proprietorship,  and 
a  proposal  that  the  taxpayer  should  make  up 
differences  of  price  was  unanimously  accepted 
by  both  sides.  Thus  the  idea  of  compelling  the 
landlords  was  abandoned  by  the  tenants'  party, 
and  there  was  substituted  for  it  the  notion  of 
making  sales  so  attractive  financially  as  to  en- 
sure a  widespread  transfer  of  property  through- 
out the  country.  Landlords  were  to  be  assured 
of  second  term  net  incomes,  and  occupiers'  rents 

[96] 


THE  MANTLE  OF  PARNELL 

were  to  be  reduced  by  not  less  than  20%.  There 
was  to  be  a  complete  settlement  of  the  evicted 
tenants'  question.  Mr.  Redmond  and  the  other 
delegates  regarded  the  state  bonus  as  "the  begin- 
ning and  the  end,  the  marrow  and  the  breath  of 
life,  of  the  Land  Conference  Agreement."  * 

Mr.  O'Brien,  rushing  from  one  extreme  to 
another,  had  hailed  the  outcome  of  the  Confer- 
ence as  marking  an  end  of  the  Irish  class  war: 
a  declaration  which  greatly  vexed  sturdy  demo- 
crats like  Michael  Davitt  and  Radicals  like  Mr. 
John  Dillon.  Mr.  Redmond,  without  expressing 
so  great  an  enthusiasm,  honestly  supported  a  Re- 
port to  which  he  had  put  his  signature.  He  was 
eager  for  national  appeasement,  and  a  policy  of 
conciliation  harmonised,  as  Mr.  O'Brien  observed 
truly,  with  all  his  inborn  sympathies  and  taste. 
His  action  at  the  Conference  was  approved  at 
the  next  meeting  of  the  National  Directory  of  the 
League;  and  in  various  speeches  he  disposed  of 
legends  circulated  by  the  extremists  to  the  effect 
that  the  Conference  had  recommended  tenants  to 
pay  33  years*  purchase  for  their  lands.  "They 
need  not  pay  more,"  he  said,  "than  the  average 

'  The  Irish  as  well  as  the  English  taxpayer  had,  of  course,  to 
contribute  to  this  bonus.  All  the  rest  of  the  expense  of  financing 
the  subsequent  measure  was  borne  for  the  first  five  years  by  the 
Irish  taxpayer. 

[97] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

amount  (20  or  22  years'  purchase)  paid  by  others 
in  recent  years." 

Mr.  Wyndham's  legislative  measure,  however, 
was  not  as  good  as  had  been  hoped.  It  fell  short 
of  the  suggestions  of  the  Land  Conference  both 
as  regards  the  amount  of  bonus  offered  as  a 
bridge  between  landlord  and  tenant,  and  also  as 
regards  the  reduction  of  the  tenants'  annuities. 
The  majority  of  landlords  and  tenants  desired, 
however,  that  the  Bill  should  pass  into  law,  and 
this  happened;  largely  owing  to  Mr.  Redmond's 
moderate  statesmanship  and  his  consummate  Par- 
liamentary ability,  the  wrecking  designs  of  the 
extremists  on  either  side  were  frustrated.  Over 
large  parts  of  the  country,  farmers  took  advan- 
tage of  the  new  Act,  and,  generally,  in  spite  of 
the  continued  carpings  of  Mr.  Dillon  and  of  the 
Freeman's  Journal,  people  saw  the  point  of  an 
excellent  story  related  by  John  Redmond  in  a 
speech  at  Arklow  on  September  15th,  1905: 

We  read  from  time  to  time  criticisms  to  the 
effect :  Oh,  the  people  could  have  purchased  their 
holdings  under  the  Ashbourne  Act  for  17  years' 
purchase.  Could  they?  If  they  could  then  there 
was  no  need  for  this  Bill.  I  was  talking  the 
other  day  to  a  farmer  in  County  Wicklow,  and 
he  said  this  very  thing  to  me.    He  said,  "But,  Sir, 

[981 


THE  MANTLE  OF  PARNELL 

we  could  have  purchased  our  holdings  under  the 
old  Bill  for  17  years'  purchase."  And  I  said  to 
him,  "Why  didn't  you  ?"  And  he  answered,  "Oh, 
the  landlord  would  not  sell."  That  is  the  whole 
question  in  a  nutshell. 

The  Act  did  not  turn  out  to  be  a  final  settle- 
ment, but  was,  nevertheless,  epoch  making,  in 
that  it  made  peasant  proprietorship  the  basis  of 
the  Irish  land  system.  Mr.  Redmond's  work  in 
connection  with  the  conference,  the  passage  of 
the  measure,  and  its  acceptance  in  Ireland  must 
be  numbered  among  the  most  important  achieve- 
ments of  his  life. 

Meanwhile  he  was  confronted  by  a  crisis  in 
Irish  political  circles  caused  by  the  disturbed  re- 
lations of  his  two  principal  followers,  Mr.  Wil- 
liam O'Brien  and  Mr.  John  Dillon.  Mr.  O'Brien 
and  Mr.  John  Dillon  had  been  taking  very  differ- 
ent views  of  the  progress  of  affairs  in  Ireland. 
Mr.  O'Brien,  delighted  at  the  outcome  of  the 
Land  Conference,  proposed  that  the  Home  Rule 
question  itself  should  be  attacked  along  similar 
lines ;  and  he  expressed  the  most  optimistic  opin- 
ions of  Mr.  Wyndham,  Sir  Antony  Macdonnell, 
the  Under-Secretary,  and  Lord  Dunraven,  the 
leader  of  the  moderate  landlords'  party.  Mr. 
O'Brien  had  become  a  convert  to  the  doctrine  of 

[99] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

evolution  in  politics,  and  believed  that  a  substan- 
tial measure  of  self-government  might  be  ob- 
tained from  the  Unionist  Government  then  in 
power.  To  this  end  he  proposed  that  the  Irish 
party  should  be  as  conciliatory  as  possible  to- 
wards that  moderate  Unionist  opinion  which 
Lord  Dunraven  and  Mr.  Wyndham  represented. 
Mr.  Dillon,  who  held  a  much  lower  view  of  the 
achievement  of  the  Land  Conference,  considered 
that  Mr.  O'Brien  was  acting  under  the  stimulus 
of  a  blind  enthusiasm.  He  gravely  distrusted  the 
reforming  landlords,  and  by  temperament  would 
have  much  preferred  that  the  realisation  of  Irish 
hopes  should  come  through  the  English  Radicals. 
Dillon  looked  for  the  knockout  blow,  O'Brien  ad- 
vocated a  peace  of  understanding. 

Mr.  Redmond  put  forward  his  best  efforts  as 
a  conciliator,  while  at  the  same  time  accepting 
with  perfect  loyalty  his  responsibility  for  the 
line  of  action  which  Mr.  O'Brien  and  himself  had 
adopted  at  the  Conference.  His  position  was  ren- 
dered very  difficult  by  stories  circulated  with  re- 
gard to  profits  which  it  was  alleged  he  had  made 
from  the  sale  of  his  own  small  estate  under  the 
Wyndham  Act.  But  as  regards  the  questions  of 
general  policy  he  was  not  wholly  in  agreement 
with  either  combatant.  Unlike  Mr.  Dillon,  he 
thought  that  the  reforming  landlords  deserved 

[100] 


THE  MANTLE  OF  PARNELlM  ?  '•.•  .      ' 

much  encouragement.  On  the  othct  -iiand^it.did 
not  seem  to  him  that  the  whole  course  of  Nation- 
alist policy  should  be  altered  to  suit  the  conven- 
ience of  Lord  Dunraven  and  his  friends,  who 
were  after  all  but  a  small  group  within  the  Union- 
ist party  and  of  doubtful  influence. 

He  wisely  elected  to  pursue  a  cautious  cause. 
He  kept  in  close  touch  with  William  O'Brien,  but 
at  the  same  time  refused  to  pass  a  sentence  of 
excommunication  upon  Mr.  O'Brien's  critics.  He 
would  not  deny  to  Mr.  Dillon  and  Mr.  Davitt  a 
right  to  their  private  opinions,  or  even  to  propa- 
ganda in  the  interest  of  their  particular  views  of 
the  Land  Act.  Such  action  on  his  part  would 
have  precipitated  a  split  in  the  Nationalist  move- 
ment; and  he  could  not  but  remember  how  as 
Parnellite  leader  he  had  insisted  on  the  rights  of 
minorities.  Mr.  O'Brien's  demands  were  insis- 
tent; he  refused  them,  and  an  amicable  parting 
followed.  Mr.  O'Brien  withdrew  from  the  politi- 
cal scene.  The  two  men  separated  on  "terms  of 
undiminished  personal  cordiality."  Henceforth 
Mr.  Dillon  was  Mr.  Redmond's  principal  adviser, 
which  is  not  to  say  that  the  leader  did  not  act  on 
many  occasions  on  his  own  initiative. 

Meanwhile  events  in  England  tended  to  dis- 
credit Mr.  William  O'Brien's  idea  of  Irish  co- 
operation with  the  Conservative.    It  was  evident 

[101] 


•:*...•      .V  TFliEXIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

,:  :•';  iliat'disas'te'nwas  in  store  for  Mr.  Balfour's  Gov- 
ernment, and  that  the  English  electors  only  await- 
ed an  opportunity  of  turning  it  out  of  office. 
There  was  talk  in  Conservative  circles  of  a  set- 
tlement of  the  University  question;  Mr.  Redmond 
refused  to  be  impressed.  When  Parliament  met 
in  1904  he  spoke  very  strongly,  and  in  April  of 
the  same  year  he  foretold  the  coming  collapse  of 
Mr.  Balfour's  Government,  adding  that  *'in  all 
human  probability  it  is  reserved  for  the  repre- 
sentatives of  Ireland  to  give  the  final  blow  that 
will  end  their  existence." 

The  Chief  Secretary,  Mr.  Wyndham,  sincerely 
wished  to  proceed  with  a  policy  of  reform,  and 
had  even  negotiated  with  Lord  Lansdowne  and 
Lord  Dunraven  on  the  subject  of  a  devolution  to 
Ireland  of  a  measure  of  self-government.  Mr. 
Redmond  recognised  Mr.  Wyndham's  sincerity, 
but  wisely  doubted  his  strength  of  purpose.  What 
the  reforming  landlords  and  he  proposed  was  not 
clear ;  some  said  merely  "a  co-ordination  of  Castle 
Boards,"  others  foresaw  an  important  step  in  the 
direction  of  National  Government.  Mr.  Red- 
mond, who  was  lecturing  in  America,  was  for  a 
time  inclined  to  interpret  the  early  activities  of 
the  Land  Reform  Association  in  a  very  favour- 
able sense.  "Home  Rule  may  come  at  any  mo- 
ment," he  declared. 

[102] 


THE  MANTLE  OF  PARNELL 

He  was  to  learn  the  truth  on  his  return  home, 
when  Mr.  Wyndham,  in  face  of  Orange  attacks, 
repudiated  all  sympathy  with  the  idea  of  a  "Stat- 
utory legislative  assembly,"  which  was  one  of 
the  items  of  Lord  Dunraven's  programme.  But 
even  with  that  surrender  the  Orangemen  were 
not  content;  nothing  would  satisfy  them  but  that 
the  Government  should  force  Mr,  Wyndham  to 
resign  and  appoint  in  his  stead  a  representative 
of  unbending  Unionism,  Mr.  Walter  Long.  Mr. 
Long  was  Chief  Secretary  during  the  remainder 
of  the  Government's  life,  during  which  time  no 
awkward  problems  of  policy  confronted  John 
Redmond.  A  simple  war  to  the  knife  prevailed. 
The  chief  incident  of  the  last  months  of  Mr. 
Balfour's  Administration  was  the  defeat,  effected 
by  Mr.  Redmond's  mastery  of  Parliamentary  pro- 
cedure, of  an  attempt  by  the  Government  to  in- 
troduce a  redistribution  scheme  which  would  have 
had  the  result  of  reducing  the  Irish  representa- 
tion by  nearly  forty  members.  The  final  collapse 
of  the  Tory  Government  justified  Mr.  Red- 
mond's prediction  that  the  Irish  Party  would  give 
it  the  coup  de  grace. 


[108] 


CHAPTER  V 

TOWARDS    HOME   RULE 

THE  years  1906  to  19 10  embraced  the  period 
which  established  Mr.  Redmond's  reputa- 
tion as  a  poHtical  strategist  of  the  first  order.  I 
use  the  expression  "political  strategist"  in  no  of- 
fensive sense.  In  his  case  it  bore  none  of  that 
connotation  of  underhand  intrigue  which  has 
done  so  much  to  bring  British  political  life  into 
public  disrepute.  A  certain  amount  of  ''wire-pull- 
ing" and  manipulation  is,  perhaps,  in  the  modern 
democracy  inseparable  from  the  position  of  a 
party  leader,  and  not  least  of  an  Irish  party  lead- 
er. But  this  aspect  of  politics,  though  he  did  not 
neglect  it  when  it  was  necessary  to  engage  in  it, 
was  temperamentally  distasteful  to  Mr.  Redmond 
and  altogether  alien  from  his  true  political  genius. 
For  him  politics  were  not  the  happy  hunting- 
ground  of  the  self-seeking  intriguer,  but  the  high- 
est form  of  public  service  to  which  a  man's  talents 
could  be  devoted.  When  I  speak  of  his  reputa- 
tion as  a  political  strategist  I  mean  nothing  less 

[104] 


TOWARDS  HOME  RULE 

worthy  than  the  consummate  skill  with  which  he 
used  his  political  talents  to  mould  political  forces 
and  seize  political  opportunities  for  the  advance- 
ment of  those  Irish  interests  in  whose  service  he 
spent  his  life. 

The  period  following  the  return  of  the  Liberal 
Party  to  power  put  those  talents  to  a  very  severe 
test.  Mr.  Redmond's  role  while  the  Conservative 
Party,  from  which  he  could  expect  only  minor 
concessions,  was  in  office,  was  relatively  easy; 
his  role  after  the  return  of  a  Liberal  Administra- 
tion from  which  he  might  hope  to  secure  the  reali- 
sation of  all  his  political  hopes  was,  paradoxical- 
ly, very  much  more  difficult.  His  difficulties  be- 
gan even  before  the  General  Election  which  fol- 
lowed the  resignation  in  December,  1905,  of  the 
Conservative  Government,  for  whose  defeat — 
finally  brought  about  over  the  question  of  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  Irish  Land  Act — Mr.  Red- 
mond's party  was  largely  responsible.  The  Brit- 
ish electorate  was  scarcely  yet  educated  into  ac- 
ceptance of  the  principle  of  Home  Rule :  the  mem- 
ory of  the  Boer  War,  and  of  the  attitude  which 
the  Irish  Parliamentary  Party  had  adopted  to- 
wards it,  was  not  yet  far  behind.  Sir  Henry 
Campbell-Bannerman,  the  new  Liberal  Prime 
Minister,  though  himself  an  unwavering  advocate 
of  Home  Rule,  was  obliged,  in  order  to  secure  the 

[105] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

co-operation  of  certain  powerful  members  of  the 
Liberal  League,  and  as  part  of  the  price  of  heal- 
ing the  differences  which  had  arisen  in  the  party 
at  the  time  of  the  Boer  War,  to  agree  that,  in 
the  event  of  a  Liberal  victory  at  the  polls,  a  Home 
Rule  measure  would  not  be  proposed  in  the  new 
Parliament.  This  agreement  created  a  position 
of  extreme  difficulty  for  Mr.  Redmond  and  his 
colleagues,  who  in  the  situation  thus  created  ad- 
vised Irish  electors  in  Great  Britain  to  vote  in 
the  first  place  for  Labour  candidates,  and  as  be- 
tween Tory  and  Liberal  to  vote  for  the  Liberal. 
The  Irish  vote  was  largely  responsible  for  the 
return  to  the  new  Parliament  of  some  forty  La- 
bour members. 

Contrary  to  general  expectation  the  Liberal 
Government  was  returned  by  a  majority  so  large 
as  to  be  independent  of  the  Irish  vote,  and  Mr. 
Redmond  was  disappointed  in  his  hope  of  hold- 
ing the  balance  of  power.  Nevertheless  his  party 
occupied  such  a  position  as  enabled  him  to  ex- 
tract important  concessions  from  a  Government 
more  or  less  sympathetic  towards  Ireland.  In 
the  first  session  of  the  new  Parliament  the  Evict- 
ed Tenants  Act  was  passed,  which  restored  to 
their  holdings  a  very  large  number  of  the 
"wounded  soldiers  of  the  Land  War."  In  the 
same  session  sanction  was  also  obtained  for  the 

[106] 


TOWARDS  HOME  RULE 

provision  of  five  million  pounds  towards  the  com- 
pletion of  the  housing  of  Irish  agricultural  la- 
bourers, and  this  sum  was  subsequently  increased 
to  eight  millions. 

The  main  Liberal  measure  of  the  new  Ses- 
sion, the  Education  Bill,  presented  Mr.  Redmond 
with  another  difficulty.  The  Bill,  introduced  un- 
der pressure  of  the  Radical  Nonconformist  ele- 
ment, was  in  many  respects  repugnant  to  Roman 
Catholic  feeling.  He  was  able  to  secure  the  con- 
cessions which  were  considered  necessary  to  safe- 
guard the  religious  atmosphere  in  the  schools, 
and  was  publicly  thanked  for  his  services  by 
Cardinal  Bourne  and  the  English  Hierarchy.  Mr. 
Redmond,  however,  who  during  the  Parnellite 
split  had  repeatedly  insisted  that  the  prevalence 
of  clerical  influence  was  killing  Home  Rule  in 
English  public  opinion,  had  necessarily  to  walk 
warily  in  this  matter,  and  secured  the  desired 
concessions  with  infinite  tact. 

It  will  be  convenient  to  take  account  here,  be- 
fore we  proceed  to  follow  Mr.  Redmond's  part 
in  the  development  of  the  Home  Rule  struggle, 
of  his  connection  with  the  two  chief  Irish  meas- 
ures of  the  Parliament  of  1906- 1910 — the  Irish 
University  Act  and  the  Irish  Land  Purchase  Act 
of  1909.  For  many  years  an  agitation  had  been 
conducted  for  the  establishment  of  a  University 

[107] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

with  a  Catholic  atmosphere,  in  order  to  meet  the 
grievance  of  young  Irish  CathoHcs  who  were  de- 
barred from  University  education  elsewhere  than 
at  Trinity  College,  which,  though  it  opened  its 
doors  to  Catholics  (Mr.  Redmond  himself  grad- 
uated there)  was  a  Protestant  foundation.  Suc- 
cessive schemes  had  been  prepared  and  had  fallen 
through,  until  finally  in  1908  the  government,  un- 
der Mr.  Redmond's  continual  urging  of  the  im- 
portance of  the  question  from  the  point  of  view 
of  "the  brain  value  of  the  nation,"  introduced  the 
Irish  University  Bill.  This  measure  created  two 
new  Universities — one  the  Federal  National  Uni- 
versity, consisting  of  the  Cork  and  Galway  Col- 
leges of  the  old  Royal  University  (merely  an  ex- 
amining body)  and  a  new  College  in  Dublin,  and 
the  other  in  Belfast,  thus  satisfying  simultane- 
ously the  grievances  of  both  Catholics  and  Pres- 
byterians. The  governing  bodies  were  made  elec- 
tive, no  religious  tests  were  imposed,  and  powers 
of  affiliation  were  conferred  so  as  to  include  May- 
nooth.  This  final  establishment  for  the  Catholic 
people  of  Ireland  of  what  he  himself  described 
as  a  great  democratic  and  national  University 
ranks  highest,  perhaps,  after  the  enactment  of 
Home  Rule  among  his  political  triumphs. 

Mr.  Redmond  greatly  resented  the  suggestion 
that  the  establishment  of  the  new  Universities, 

[108] 


TOWARDS  HOME  RULE 

distinctively  Catholic  and  Presbyterian  respec- 
tively, was  calculated  to  perpetuate  religious  dif- 
ferences. That  certainly  was  not  his  intention 
in  pressing  the  Irish  Catholic  claim  for  suitable 
University  education.  He  was  concerned  merely 
with  the  practical  grievance  of  a  Catholic  being 
deprived  of  University  teaching  because  of  what 
he  regarded  as  the  danger  to  his  faith.  Whether 
he  so  regarded  it  himself  (a  moot  question,  since, 
although  he  was  himself  educated  at  Trinity 
College,  he  refused  to  send  his  son  there)  was 
altogether  beside  the  point.  He  approached  the 
question,  in  fact,  not  as  a  political  Catholic,  but 
merely  as  a  Catholic  politician. 

One  may  appropriately  quote  here  his  own 
earlier  assertion  of  the  Irish  national  movement's 
independence  of  all  reHgious  creeds.  "I  say  the 
National  movement  is  not  a  Catholic  movement. 
It  is  not  in  conflict  with  the  interests  of  the  Cath- 
olic religion;  God  forbid! — that  is  the  religion  of 
the  overwhelming  majority  of  our  people.  But 
the  National  movement  is  a  movement  embrac- 
ing within  its  fold  men  of  all  religions,  and  those 
who  seek  to  turn  the  Nationalist  movement  into 
a  Catholic  movement  would  be  repudiating  some 
of  the  highest  pages  of  our  national  history  and 
forgetting  the  memory  of  some  of  the  greatest 

[109] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

of  our  national  heroes  who  professed  the  newer 
and  not  the  older  creed  of  our  country." 

The  Irish  Land  Act  of  1909 — commonly  known 
as  the  "Birrell  Act" — the  other  chief  Irish  meas- 
ure of  the  Session,  was  introduced  at  Mr.  Red- 
mond's instance  to  deal  with  the  slowness  of  the 
transfer,  caused  by  a  provision  of  the  Wyndham 
Act  of  1903  limiting  the  issue  of  Irish  Land  Stock 
to  five  million  pounds  yearly.  The  new  Act  did 
not  go  so  far  as  Mr.  Redmond  would  have 
wished;  it  extended  the  principle  of  compulsory 
sale  only  to  nine  counties  instead  of  to  the  whole 
country;  but  its  modifications  and  additions  to 
the  Wyndham  Act  brought  much  nearer  to  com- 
pletion the  programme  laid  down  by  the  Land 
Conference  of  1903  in  which  he  had  played  a  lead- 
ing part  in  bringing  about  the  peaceful  agrarian 
resolution  in  Ireland. 

We  may  now  resume  our  study  of  Mr.  Red- 
mond's part  in  the  final  struggle  for  Home  Rule. 
Sir  Henry  Campbell-Bannerman,  the  new  Liberal 
Prime  Minister,  as  we  have  seen,  had  been  com- 
pelled to  agree  before  the  General  Election  that, 
in  the  event  of  a  Liberal  victory  at  the  polls,  a 
Home  Rule  measure  would  not  be  proposed  in 
the  new  Parliament.  This  agreement,  however, 
did  not  exclude  dealing  with  the  alternative 
scheme  which  had  come  to  be  known  as  "devolu- 

[110] 


TOWARDS  HOME  RULE 

tion."  Sir  Antony  Macdonnell's  scheme  of  ad- 
ministrative Home  Rule  brought  forward  under 
the  late  Administration  and  then  killed  by  the 
opposition  of  the  Orangemen  and  the  more  ex- 
treme Tories  still  lingered  "in  the  air";  and  it 
was  soon  apparent  that  the  Liberal  Government 
proposed  to  attempt  a  new  move  in  this  direction. 
The  Chief  Secretary,  Mr.  Bryce,  was  appointed 
to  the  post  of  British  Ambassador  to  the  United 
States,  and  it  was  rumoured  that  Mr.  Redmond 
himself  was  offered  the  vacant  position.  Mr. 
Birrell,  the  new  Chief  Secretary,  a  close  friend  of 
Mr.  Redmond,  was  generally  understood  to  be 
the  Irish  leader's  nominee.  "There  are  two  men," 
ivrites  Mr.  Stead  at  the  beginning  of  1907,  "whose 
opinion  on  the  matter  would  be  worth  having, 
Mr.  Redmond  and  Sir  Antony  Macdonnell.  The 
new  Chief  Secretary,  whoever  he  may  be,  ought 
to  regard  himself  as  Mr.  Redmond's  man.  Mr. 
Redmond  himself  ought  to  be  Chief  Secretary, 
but  as  he  is  precluded  from  taking  the  post  the 
Cabinet  ought  to  accept  Mr.  Redmond's  nominee 
and  the  new  Chief  Secretary  ought  to  do  what 
Mr.  Redmond  tells  him.  For  Mr.  Redmond,  if 
Home  Rule  were  granted,  would  be  Prime  Minis- 
ter of  Ireland." 

In  these  circumstances  it  was  generally  as- 
sumed that  Mr.  Redmond  was  privy  to  the  draft- 

[1111 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND  . 

ing  of  the  scheme  of  devolution  introduced  by  Mr. 
Birrell  in  May,  1907,  under  the  title  of  the  Irish 
Councils  Bill.  Mr.  Redmond,  however,  earHer  in 
the  year,  had  declared  that  he  could  only  look 
upon  a  scheme  of  administrative  Home  Rule  as 
a  makeshift;  had  undertaken  only  that  when  the 
Government's  proposals  were  drafted  they  should 
be  submitted  to  a  Nationalist  Convention;  and 
had  warned  the  Government  of  the  danger  of 
half  measures.  The  Irish  Councils  Bill  upon  its 
introduction  was  found  merely  to  propose  a  co- 
ordination of  the  chief  Castle  Boards  under  a 
popular  council,  which  was  to  be  partly  elective 
and  partly  nominated,  and  was  to  have  certain 
limited  powers  of  controlling  finance  and  admin- 
istration. 

Mr.  Redmond's  attitude  towards  the  Bill  from 
first  to  last  is  best  expressed  in  a  series  of  quo- 
tations from  his  own  speeches.  In  his  speech  on 
its  introduction  he  neither  praised  nor  blamed 
it,  accepted  or  rejected  it.  He  said  that  he  had 
never  addressed  the  House  under  a  heavier  sense 
of  responsibility ;  that  no  one  in  his  position  could 
take  upon  himself  the  onus  of  refusing  any  meas- 
ure, however  small,  that  would  remove  even  one 
Irish  grievance ;  and  that  the  Bill  must  await  the 
decision  of  the  National  Convention.  When  the 
Convention  assembled  the  scheme  was  in  fact 

[112] 


TOWARDS  HOME  RULE 

unanimously  rejected  on  his  own  motion.  It  was 
charged  against  Mr.  Redmond  by  some  of  his 
own  friends  that  upon  this  question  he  "led  his 
party  from  behind."  The  charge  scarcely  seems 
to  be  substantiated  in  the  light  of  his  own 
speeches.  Six  months  before  the  introduction  of 
the  Bill  he  had  said  that  "when  the  hour  of  that 
Convention  comes,  any  influence  which  I  possess 
with  my  fellow-countrymen  will  be  used  to  induce 
them  to  reject  any  proposal,  no  matter  how  plaus- 
ible, which  in  my  judgment  may  be  calculated  to 
injure  the  prestige  of  the  Irish  Party,  and  dis- 
rupt the  national  movement,  because  my  first  and 
my  greatest  policy,  which  overshadows  every- 
thing else,  is  to  preserve  a  united  National  party 
in  Parliament,  and  a  united  powerful  organisa- 
tion in  Ireland,  until  we  achieve  the  full  measure 
to  which  we  are  entitled." 

It  appears  that  on  consideration  of  the  Coun- 
cils Bill  after  its  introduction  he  saw  in  it  pre- 
cisely that  element  of  division  which  he  had  de- 
clared would  lead  him  to  urge  its  rejection.  "By 
the  constitution  of  this  Council  it  is  extremely 
doubtful  to  my  mind,"  he  said  in  his  speech  at  the 
Convention,  "whether  the  real  feeling  of  the 
overwhelming  mass  of  the  Irish  people  would  be 
truly  reflected  in  a  workable  majority  on  the 
Council,  and  there  would  be  the  greatest  possible 

[113] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

danger  that  the  Council  would  constitute  a  sort 
of  rival  body  to  the  Irish  Nationalist  Party, 
which,  as  I  have  said,  I  believed  to  be  the  great- 
est weapon,  with  an  organised  country  behind  it, 
which  Ireland  has  in  her  possession." 

In  the  September  after  the  rejection  of  the  Bill 
by  the  Nationalist  Convention  Mr.  Redmond  de- 
clared that,  "its  production  and  its  fate  will  prove, 
in  my  opinion,  probably  a  blessing  in  disguise. 
Certainly  the  fate  of  that  great  measure  has 
shown  the  Government  the  impossibility  of  satis- 
fying Ireland  with  anything  short  of  real  Home 
Rule,  and  it  has  also  made  this  certain,  that  Home 
Rule  and  not  Devolution  will  be  the  Irish 
policy  put  before  the  electors  at  the  next  General 
Election.  If  that  Bill  had  been  accepted  here  as 
an  installment,  and  if  it  had  passed,  as  it  would 
have  passed,  the  House  of  Commons,  it  most  un- 
doubtedly would  have  been  rejected  by  the  House 
of  Lords,  and  then  it — that  is,  the  Irish  Councils 
Bill — would  have  definitely  passed  into  the  pro- 
gramme of  the  Liberal  Party  as  their  Irish  policy, 
whereas  now,  after  what  has  happened.  Home 
Rule,  and  whole  Home  Rule,  must  be  the  policy 
of  the  Liberal  Party  before  the  next  General 
Election." 

That  prediction  was  justified  by  the  event ;  but 
Mr.  Redmond's  action  in  connection  with  the 

[114] 


TOWARDS  HOME  RULE 

Bill  was  the  subject  of  much  criticism  in  Ireland. 
There  were  those  on  the  one  hand  who  complained 
that  the  immediate  rejection  of  the  Bill  was  bad 
policy,  and  would  have  preferred  a  less  uncom- 
promising attitude.  There  were  those  on  the 
other  hand  who  charged  Mr.  Redmond  with  hav- 
ing been  ready  to  accept  the  Bill  but  for  the  un- 
mistakable manifestations  of  hostility  towards  it, 
and  denounced  him  for  his  weakness.  Even  in 
his  own  party  it  produced  no  little  dissension  and 
even  some  secessions.  From  this  period  dates 
the  definite  cleavage  of  the  new  party  of  "con- 
ciliators" which  at  the  next  General  Election  was 
to  be  returned,  to  the  strength  of  ten  members, 
under  the  leadership  of  Mr.  William  O'Brien — 
the  All-for-Ireland  group.  For  the  moment, 
however,  differences  were  healed,  and  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  session  of  1908  Mr.  Redmond  had 
the  satisfaction  of  seeing  carried  by  a  large  ma- 
jority in  the  House  of  Commons  his  amendment 
to  the  Address  to  the  Throne  reaffirming  the 
principle  of  Home  Rule.  In  the  same  year  he 
and  his  party  played  a  prominent  part  in  carry- 
ing the  Old  Age  Pensions  Act  by  which  a  sum 
of  two  and  a  half  million  pounds  per  annum  was 
distributed  among  the  aged  poor  of  Ireland. 

In  1909  the  introduction  of  Mr.  Lloyd  George's 
famous  Budget  marked  the  beginning  of  the  final 

[115] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

phase  in  the  struggle  against  the  Lords  which 
ended  in  the  destruction  of  the  absolute  veto  of 
that  Chamber  over  democratic  legislation  and 
paved  the  way  to  the  passing  of  the  Home  Rule 
Act.  The  influence  of  Mr.  Redmond  dominated 
all  this  chapter  of  British  political  history.  The 
Budget  of  1907  in  many  respects — notably  in  its 
dealings  with  land  and  liquor — hit  Irish  inter- 
ests somewhat  severely.  Mr.  Redmond,  fore- 
seeing that  a  greater  issue  than  that  of  the  Budget 
itself  was  destined  to  arise  from  it,  in  the  main 
supported  the  Bill,  but  at  the  same  time  made  it 
f  clear  that  in  its  final  stages  the  Government  must 
reckon  with  his  party's  opposition  unless  material 
concessions  were  made  to  the  Irish  interests  af- 
fected. The  Government,  after  a  considerable  pe- 
riod of  hesitation,  substantially  conceded  Mr. 
Redmond's  demands.  The  further  question  re- 
mained, however,  what  attitude  the  Irish  Party 
should  adopt  in  the  crisis  which  was  now  clearly 
approaching.  It  was  apparent  that  the  Lords 
were  about  to  reject  the  Budget,  and  that  a  great 
constitutional  issue  would  arise  in  which  the  in- 
terests of  British  democracy  would  be  involved  in 
a  degree  which  had  not  been  known  since  the 
great  Reform  Bill  of  '32. 

This  was  an  issue  on  which  the  Nationalist 
Party  could  scarcely  afford  to  take  risks  of  alien- 

[116] 


TOWARDS  HOME  RULE 

ating  the  Liberal  and  Labour  Parties.  "The  is- 
sue/' as  Mr.  Redmond  said  later  at  Manchester, 
"is  Home  Rule  for  England."  But  at  the  same 
time  his  first  objective  was  an  assurance  that  a 
popular  victory  would  be  a  victory  for  Irish  de- 
mocracy as  well  as  for  British  democracy.  It 
was  eventually  decided  by  the  Nationalist  Party 
to  let  the  Budget  pass  the  House  of  Commons, 
in  the  expectation  that  the  Lords  would  make 
good  their  threat  of  rejection  and  precipitate  a 
great  constitutional  struggle.  This  expectation 
was  duly  realised,  and,  on  the  Budget  being  re- 
turned to  the  Commons,  Mr.  Asquith,  who  had 
succeeded  to  the  Premiership  on  the  death  of  Sir 
Henry  Campbell-Bannerman,  moved  a  resolution 
protesting  against  the  action  of  the  Lords  and 
announced  that  the  Government  had  advised  the 
King  to  dissolve  Parliament.  In  the  division  on 
this  resolution,  which  was  carried  by  a  large  ma- 
jority, Mr.  Redmond  and  his  colleagues  took  no 
part.  "To  Liberals,"  wrote  an  English  chronicler 
of  the  time,  "this  aloofness  of  the  Irish  members 
at  a  critical  moment  in  the  last  hours  of  a  Par- 
liament that  has  done  much  for  Ireland  was  a 
keen  disappointment." 

Mr.  Redmond's  abstention,  of  course,  was  due 
to  the  fact  that  he  was  still  without  an  assurance 
that  Irish  support  of  the  Liberals  would  pave 

[117] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

the  way  for  Home  Rule.  It  was  a  warning  to 
the  Government  that  so  far  as  Mr.  Redmond  and 
the  Nationalist  Party  were  concerned  the  limit- 
ing of  the  power  of  the  House  of  Lords,  the  stand- 
ing obstacle  to  Home  Rule,  must  not  leave  to 
the  chances  of  the  future  the  question  of  Irish 
self-government.  The  Irish  leader  was  fully  re- 
solved that  this  great  question  should  be  definitely 
and  unmistakably  associated  with  the  constitu- 
tional issue.  Mr.  Asquith's  succession  to  Sir 
Henry  Campbell-Bannerman  had  been  looked 
upon  with  some  suspicion  by  the  Nationalists,  and 
Mr.  Redmond  was  determined  that  his  attitude 
should  not  be  left  in  doubt. 

The  election  campaign  had  not  been  long  in 
progress  when  the  desired  assurance  from  Mr. 
Asquith  was  forthcoming.  Speaking  at  the  Al- 
bert Hall  on  December  loth,  1909,  the  Liberal 
Prime  Minister  declared  that  the  absolute  veto 
of  the  House  of  Lords  must  go,  and  that  this  in 
itself  would  mean  the  removal  of  the  greatest 
obstacle  in  the  path  of  the  Home  Rule  cause.  He 
went  on  to  declare  that  "speaking  on  behalf  of 
the  Government,  in  March  of  last  year,  a  week 
before  my  accession  to  the  office  of  Prime  Min- 
ister, I  described  Ireland  as  the  one  unmistakable 
failure  of  British  statesmanship.  I  repeat  here 
to-night  what  I  said  then,  speaking  on  behalf  of 

[118] 


TOWARDS  HOME  RULE 

my  colleagues  and  I  believe  of  my  party,  that  the 
solution  of  the  problem  can  be  found  only  in  one 
way — by  a  policy  which,  while  explicitly  safe- 
guarding the  supremacy  and  indefeasible  author- 
ity of  the  Imperial  Parliament,  will  set  up  in  Ire- 
land a  system  of  full  self-government  in  regard 
to  purely  Irish  affairs.  There  is  not,  and  there 
cannot  be,  any  question  of  separation;  there  is 
not,  and  there  cannot  be,  any  question  of  rival  or 
competing  supremacies ;  but,  subject  to  these  con- 
ditions, that  is  the  Liberal  policy."  That  declara- 
tion, in  Mr.  T.  P.  O'Connor's  words,  sounded  the 
death-knell  of  Devolution  by  an  open  avowal  of 
the  full  Gladstonian  policy,  and  the  position  lost 
by  the  rejection  of  the  Home  Rule  Bill  of  1893 
was  regained  in  1909. 

Despite  this  vindication  of  Mr.  Redmond's 
leadership,  however,  he  had  in  the  first  general 
Election  of  1910  to  face,  for  the  first  time  since 
his  election  as  leader  of  the  re-united  Irish  Par- 
liamentary Party,  an  organised  opposition  in  the 
constituencies.  Mr.  William  O'Brien  had  now 
definitely  seceded  and  formed  a  new  party  un- 
der the  name  of  the  All-for-Ireland  League,  and 
brought  back  eight  representatives  from  Mun- 
ster  constituencies  to  oppose  Mr.  Redmond  un- 
der his  leadership.  Mr.  Redmond,  in  his  election 
speeches,  recalled  the  programme  which  he  had 

[119] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

outlined  four  years  earlier  to  his  constituents  at 
Waterford.  He  had  spoken  of  the  education 
question :  the  Party  had  given  them  a  great  Irish 
national  democratic  University.  He  had  spoken 
of  the  land  question :  the  principle  of  compulsory 
purchase  had  been  extended  to  nine  counties  and 
even  beyond  wherever  congestion  existed,  while 
the  restoration  of  the  evicted  tenants,  which 
should  have  taken  place  in  1903  had  the  Party  had 
its  way,  had  now  been  arranged.  He  recalled  also 
what  the  Party  had  done  for  the  improvement  of 
housing,  urban  as  well  as  rural.  With  regard  to 
the  Budget,  he  showed  that  the  Party  had  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  all  the  agricultural  land  exempt- 
ed from  the  new  taxes,  and  in  providing  that  all 
the  money  raised  in  Ireland  on  such  land  as  had 
increased  in  value  through  the  action  of  the  com- 
munity should  go  to  the  local  authorities  in  Ire- 
land and  be  used  in  the  interests  of  the  working 
classes.  All  these  things  he  ventured  to  lay  be- 
fore the  Irish  people  as  the  work  of  four  years, 
and  if  he  were  accused  of  having  failed  to  ob- 
tain Home  Rule,  while  he  had  refused  the  Irish 
Councils  Bill,  it  was  only,  he  explained,  because 
if  that  Bill  had  not  been  rejected  it  would  have 
become,  at  any  rate  for  their  life-time,  the  high 
water-mark  of  Liberal  effort. 

The  election  campaign  was  remarkable  for  an 
[120] 


TOWARDS  HOME  RULE 

exceedingly  bitter  personal  contest  between  Mr. 
Redmond  and  Mr.  T.  M.  Healy,  sustained  on  Mr. 
Redmond's  side,  in  the  face  of  violent  attacks, 
with  much  dignity.  "Public  life  in  the  country," 
he  said,  "is  hard  owing  to  such  attacks  as  these, 
and  it  is  bitter  indeed  to  be  subjected  to  attacks 
of  this  kind.  My  power  for  good  has  been  small ; 
my  abilities  are  limited.  God  knows  there  is  no 
one  more  conscious  of  his  own  shortcomings  than 
I  am  of  mine,  but  I  know  that  my  motives  have 
been  honest  and  sound.  I  know  I  have  given  my 
best  to  the  service  of  the  people  of  Ireland.  When 
you  are  tired  of  me,  when  my  colleagues  in  the 
House  of  Commons  are  tired  of  me,  I  am  quite 
ready  to-morrow  to  step  down  and  out,  and  when 
that  day  comes  I  will  humbly  and  loyally  do  my 
best  to  support  those  who  may  take  my  place. 
But  never  so  long  as  I  live  will  I  allow  myself  to 
be  driven  out  by  calumny  and  abuse." 

"The  position  to  which  I  was  elected,"  said 
Mr.  Redmond  again,  "was  one  of  great  difficulty 
at  cny  time,  but  at  the  time  I  was  put  into  it  the 
difficulties  were  enormous  and  unprecedented. 
So  far  as  the  Parnell  split  is  concerned,  I  think  I 
have  succeeded.  I  have  endeavoured  to  be  patient 
under  unjust  and  ungenerous  criticism.  I  have 
endeavoured  to  extend  toleration  to  every  man. 
I  did  not  hesitate  to  risk  my  position  and  my  popu- 

[121] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

larity  with  my  countrymen  and  my  colleagues  in 
order  to  avoid  the  necessity  of  extreme  action 
against  men  who  were  mutineers."  The  General 
Election,  as  has  been  stated,  reduced  the  strength 
of  Mr.  Redmond's  party  by  eight  through  the 
secession  of  the  All-for-Ireland  group.  The  suc- 
cess of  this  secession  was  influenced  indirectly 
by  the  Sinn  Fein  movement,  whose  bearing  upon 
Mr.  Redmond's  political  fortunes  is  considered  at 
length  in  a  later  chapter. 

In  Great  Britain  the  Irish  vote  was  thrown  on 
the  side  of  the  Liberal  and  Labour  candidates, 
and  contributed  largely  to  the  coalition  majority 
of  124.  Mr.  Redmond  took  an  energetic  part  in 
the  election  campaign  in  Great  Britain  as  well  as 
in  Ireland.  In  his  speeches  he  identified  the  cause 
of  the  British  and  Irish  democracies,  asserting 
the  truth  of  Lecky's  contention,  that  no  single 
element  in  the  House  of  Commons  has  been  more 
fruitful  in  influencing  the  progress  of  English 
democracy  than  the  Irish  Party.  He  maintained 
in  a  speech  at  Manchester  to  a  largely  Irish  au- 
dience that  the  House  of  Lords  alone — not  the 
people  of  England — were  really  hostile  to  Irish 
self-government,  and  that  the  abolition  or  the 
limitation  of  the  veto  of  the  Lords  meant  Home 
Rule  for  Ireland.  It  was  hardly  to  be  expected 
that  the  English  people  should  fight  the  Lords  en- 

[122] 


TOWARDS  HOME  RULE 

tirely  upon  the  Irish  question — thus  shelving  all 
British  questions  for  several  sessions — but  once 
the  constitutional  struggle  had  begun  there  was 
hardly  anything  more  important  than  that  Ire- 
land should  take  her  part. 

Proceeding  to  deal  with  the  cry  of  separation, 
he  declared  that  "to  talk  about  Ireland  separat- 
ing from  the  Empire  is  the  most  utter  nonsense. 
We  are  not  asking  for  separation  ...  I  say  to 
the  English  democracy,  in  all  seriousness,  what 
we  want  is  peace  between  the  two  countries.  We 
have  none  of  these  heroic  ambitions  and  hare- 
brained ideas.  Our  ideas  and  our  ambitions  are 
humbler.  We  simply  want  the  people  to  turn  the 
energies  and  abilities  which  are  to-day  dissipated 
in  this  horrible  racial  contest  between  England 
and  Ireland  to  the  prosaic  work  of  advancing 
the  material  and  moral  and  educational  eleva- 
tion of  our  own  people  at  home.  We  know  that 
it  cannot  be  done  by  outsiders.  The  whole  his- 
tory of  the  Empire  shows  the  same  in  every  part 
of  the  world.  We  simply  ask  for  permission 
quietly  to  attend  to  our  own  business  in  our  own 
way." 

The  result  of  the  election  left  the  balance  of 
power  in  the  new  Parliament  in  Mr.  Redmond's 
hands,  and  immediate  occasion  arose  for  his  use 
of  this  dominating  position.    Mr.  Asquith's  dec- 

[123] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

larations  during  the  election  campaign  had  been 
very  generally  interpreted  as  meaning  that  he 
had  obtained  guarantees  from  the  King  for  the 
ending  of  the  Lords'  veto,  and  that  he  would  pro- 
ceed at  once  to  deal  with  the  question.  In  his 
opening  speech  of  the  session,  on  February  2 1st, 
1910,  however,  the  Prime  Minister  announced 
that  not  only  had  he  no  such  guarantees,  but  that 
in  his  opinion  it  would  have  been  improper  and 
unconstitutional  for  him  to  ask  for  them;  and 
he  indicated  that  the  Government  was  contem- 
plating rather  a  reform  of  the  House  of  Lords 
than  a  limitation  of  its  veto.  For  the  National- 
ist Party  the  destruction  of  the  veto  was,  of 
course,  all  important,  and  Mr.  Redmond  lost  no 
time  in  bringing  the  situation  under  his  control. 
Speaking  at  a  banquet  given  to  him  and  his  col- 
leagues at  the  Gresham  Hotel  in  Dublin  by  the 
Lord  Mayor  some  ten  days  before  the  meeting 
of  Parliament  and  Mr.  Asquith's  announcement, 
but  when  the  Government's  intention  to  put  re- 
form of  the  Lords  before  the  veto  was  already 
known,  Mr.  Redmond  asked,  so  far  as  Ireland 
was  concerned,  for  a  free  hand  and  for  security 
from  any  danger  of  being  stabbed  in  the  back. 
Then  he  bluntly  declared  that,  unless  the  Gov- 
ernment was  prepared  to  proceed  at  once  with  the 

[124] 


TOWARDS  HOME  RULE 

limitations  of  the  Lords'  veto,  he  and  his  party 
would  refuse  to  pass  the  Budget. 

This  blunt  declaration  at  once  transformed  the 
political  situation.  The  Radical  wing  of  the  Lib- 
erals and  the  Labour  Party,  who  had  been  disap- 
pointed and  indignant  at  the  Government's  atti- 
tude towards  the  Lords,  but  had  lacked  a  strong 
spokesman,  at  once  rallied  behind  Mr.  Redmond 
and  took  up  with  enthusiasm  his  slogan  of  "No 
Veto;  No  Budget."  On  the  meeting  of  Parlia- 
ment and  Mr.  Asquith's  announcement,  Mr.  Red- 
mond personally  served  notice  on  the  Government 
that,  unless  it  was  prepared  to  alter  its  policy,  it 
would  not  have  the  support  of  the  Irish  Party  in 
passing  the  Budget.  The  debate  was  immediately 
adjourned,  and  a  political  crisis  of  three  weeks' 
duration  followed. 

Finally  the  Government  capitulated  to  Mr. 
Redmond.  Sir  Edward  Grey  and  the  other  Min- 
isters who  had  favoured  the  policy  of  reform 
for  the  House  of  Lords  had  in  the  meantime  come 
to  see  that  the  only  alternative  to  accepting  his 
demand,  in  view  of  the  Radical  and  Labour  sup- 
port of  his  attitude,  was  the  complete  disaster  of 
the  Coalition.  On  March  29th,  accordingly,  Mr. 
Asquith  announced  that  the  Government  would 
at  once  take  up  the  question  of  the  veto,  and 
leave  the  question  of  the  reform  of  the  Lords 

[125] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

over  to  another  session.  The  Parliament  Bill  was 
published  a  few  days  later,  and  was  carried 
through  the  House  of  Commons  on  April  14th. 
Not  until  then  did  Mr.  Redmond  agree  to  pass  the 
Budget.  The  Parliament  Bill  limiting  the  Lords' 
veto  was  passed  by  the  House  of  Commons  after 
a  very  bitter  debate,  in  which  the  Unionist  Party 
violently  denounced  Mr.  Redmond's  share  in  the 
transaction. 

Mr.  Harry  Jones,  the  Parliamentary  journal- 
ist, thus  described  Mr.  Redmond's  part  in  this 
chapter  of  political  history :  'Tt  happened  that  the 
Nationalists  held  the  keys  of  the  situation.  The 
1909  Budget,  rejected  by  the  Lords,  had  not  yet 
been  passed  into  law.  It  had  to  be  reintroduced 
into  the  House  of  Commons,  and  it  could  not  go 
through  that  House  without  the  concurrence  of 
the  Nationalist  members.  'No  Veto,  No  Budget,' 
was  the  policy  of  the  Nationalist  leader.  This  be- 
came crystallised  into  a  policy  expressing  Liberal 
no  less  than  Nationalist  conviction.  Through 
these  early  troubled  weeks  of  the  new  Parliament 
Mr.  John  Redmond  played  a  statesmanlike  role. 
Amid  the  shifting  sands  of  doubt  and  uncertainty 
he  stood  firm  as  a  rock,  and  became  the  rallying- 
point  for  Liberal  opinion  in  and  out  of  Parlia- 
ment. Mr.  Redmond's  post-bag  in  these  days  was 
heavy  with  letters  from  leading  Liberals  in  all 

[126] 


TOWARDS  HOME  RULE 

parts  of  the  country  expressing  grateful  appre- 
ciation of  his  steadfast  attitude.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  the  Nationalist  leader  was  a  pow- 
erful factor  in  modifying  the  tactics  of  the  Cabi- 
net, and  in  assisting  the  concentration  of  the 
whole  Liberal  army  on  the  limitation  of  the 
Lords'  veto." ' 

From  this  point  Mr.  Redmond  became  the  tar- 
get of  furious  attacks  in  the  Tory  Press,  which 
represented  the  Veto  campaign  as  being  engi- 
neered for  the  purpose  of  carrying  Home  Rule — 
which  was,  of  course,  the  case  so  far  as  Mr.  Red- 
mond and  his  party  were  concerned.  The  prog- 
ress of  the  constitutional  struggle  was  soon  in- 
terrupted by  the  unexpected  death  of  King  Ed- 
ward on  May  6th.  One  of  the  first  acts  of  his 
successor  was  the  summoning  of  a  conference  of 
party  leaders  with  the  object  of  finding  an  agreed 
solution  on  the  position  of  the  House  of  Lords 
with  a  vievtt  to  avoiding,  if  possible,  the  creation 
of  new  peers.  The  summoning  of  the  conference 
coincided  with  a  plea  for  a  compromise  on  the 
Irish  question  put  forward  in  certain  sections  of 
the  English  Press,  notably  by  the  Observer  and 
the  Times,  and  it  was  clear  that  the  constitutional 
question  and  the  Irish  question  remained  insep- 

*  "Liberalism  and  the  House  of  Lords." 
[1«7] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

arable.  The  expedient  of  a  conference  was  not 
liked  by  the  Nationalists,  but  they  were  to  some 
extent  reassured  by  the  inclusion  of  Mr,  Birrell 
among  the  Liberal  representatives.  The  confer- 
ence, after  a  lengthy  session,  finally  broke  up 
without  achieving  any  result,  and  it  was  common- 
ly understood  that  the  Irish  question — which  was, 
of  course,  closely  involved  in  the  question  of  con- 
stitutional reform — was  a  prime  cause  of  its  fail- 
ure. Mr.  Redmond  in  the  meantime  had  taken 
advantage  of  the  suspension  of  the  controversy 
to  pay  a  visit  to  the  United  States,  where  in  the 
autumn  he  attended  a  Convention  of  the  United 
Irish  League  of  America  in  Chicago  and  had 
an  enthusiastic  reception  from  the  Irish-Amer- 
icans. 

Almost  simultaneously  with  his  return  it  was 
announced  on  November  loth  that  the  conference 
had  failed  to  come  to  an  agreement.  A  week 
later,  when  it  had  become  evident  that  the  House 
of  Lords  had  no  intention  of  passing  the  Veto 
Bill,  Mr.  Asquith  announced  that  Parliament 
would  again  be  dissolved  without  delay.  In  the 
debate  following  this  announcement,  which  was 
received  with  very  modified  enthusiasm  by  the 
Government's  supporters,  Mr.  Redmond  took  no 
part.  Mr.  Jones,  from  whom  I  have  quoted 
above,  thus  describes  the  incident:  "All  through 

[128] 


TOWARDS  HOME  RULE 

the  long  debate  Mr.  Redmond  (who  had  only  re- 
turned from  his  American  tour  a  few  days  be- 
fore) sat  silent  in  his  corner  seat.  Two  dissident 
Irishmen,  Mr.  William  O'Brien  and  Mr.  Tim- 
othy Healy,  did  their  utmost  to  make  the  Irish 
leader  speak,  but  to  no  purpose.  When  the  mem- 
ber for  Cork  said  that  'the  ''dictator  of  England" 
was  the  "destroyer"  of  Ireland,' 'a  smile  over- 
spread Mr.  Redmond's  Roman  features.  Mr. 
Healy  spoke  like  a  statesman  when  he  appealed 
to  both  politii^al  parties  to  use  the  present  blessed 
opportunity  for  a  national  settlement  of  the  Irish 
question.  But  the  statesman  was  swallowed  up 
by  the  partisan  when  he  began  to  fling  his  darts 
at  the  Nationalist  leader.  Calm  and  imperturbed, 
Mr.  Redmond  listened  to  his  caustic  critic.  In 
spite  of  provocation  and  misrepresentation,  still 
he  held  his  tongue.  It  is  a  great  art  to  know 
when  to  be  silent.  Mr.  Redmond's  silence  through 
all  this  long  debate  was  more  eloquent  than 
words." 

Mr.  Redmond's  silence,  of  course,  was  due  to 
the  absence  of  assurances  from  the  Government 
as  to  its  attitude  in  the  event  of  its  success  in  this 
second  General  Election  of  1910.  He  was  still 
determined  that  Irish  support  of  the  Government 
should  be  conditional  upon  the  question  of  Ire- 
land being  taken  up  immediately  the  veto  of  the 

[129] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

Lords  was  destroyed.  The  required  assurances, 
however,  were  soon  forthcoming,  and  again  the 
Irish  voters  in  Great  Britain  were  mobilised  in 
support  of  the  Government.  In  the  Tory  Press 
and  on  Tory  platforms  during  the  election  Mr. 
Redmond  was  now  more  than  ever  the  target  of 
abuse.  At  this  period  there  was  coined  for  his 
benefit  the  soubriquet  of  "the  Dollar  Dictator," 
in  reference  to  his  American  tour;  he  was  de- 
nounced as  having  returned  from  the  United 
States  with  his  pockets  filled  with  foreign  gold  to 
dominate  British  politics.  The  election,  decided  as 
much  on  the  Home  Rule  issue  as  on  that  of  the 
Veto,  after  perhaps  the  most  violent  campaign 
in  British  political  history,  resulted  in  a  slightly 
increased  majority  for  the  Government — 126  as 
against  124  in  July.  The  balance  of  power  was 
still  in  Mr.  Redmond's  hands. 

A  fortnight  after  the  meeting  of  the  new  Par- 
liament on  February  6th,  191 1,  the  Parliament 
Bill  limiting  the  Lords'  veto  was  introduced.  It 
was  finally  passed  through  the  House  of  Com- 
mons in  the  following  May,  and  was  accepted  by 
the  House  of  Lords  after  a  statement  of  Lord 
Morley  that  if  it  were  defeated  the  King  would 
assent  to  the  creation  of  enough  new  peers  to 
carry  it  at  its  next  presentation.  "If  Mr.  Red- 
mond," said  the  writer  of  his  obituary  in  the 

[130] 


TOWARDS  HOME  RULE 

Freemcm's  Journal  in  summing  up  the  Veto 
struggle,  "had  no  other  claim  to  greatness  or  the 
gratitude  of  his  countrymen  than  the  part  which 
he  played  in  this  gigantic  struggle,  he  would  be 
entitled  to  be  regarded  for  all  time  as  one  of 
the  greatest  of  our  national  leaders.  For  un- 
questionably it  was  due  to  him  more  than  to  any 
other  man  that  the  formidable  power  of  the 
Lords  was  broken  for  ever."  The  claim  cannot 
be  regarded  as  excessive. 

Mr.  Redmond's  use  of  his  victory,  however, 
was  the  subject  of  no  little  criticism  in  Ireland. 
With  the  Parliament  Bill  passed  and  the  power  of 
the  Lords  broken,  the  road  was  at  last  clear  for 
the  introduction  of  the  Home  Rule  Bill.  During 
the  remaining  months  of  191 1  Parliament  in- 
stead devoted  most  of  its  time  and  attention  to 
Mr.  Lloyd  George's  Insurance  Bill.  Mr.  Red- 
mond's critics  in  Ireland,  besides  objecting  to  the 
postponement  of  the  Home  Rule  Bill,  opposed  the 
Insurance  Bill  itself,  which  was  certainly  not 
very  popular  in  Ireland.  It  was  warmly  sup- 
ported, however,  by  one  of  his  chief  lieutenants, 
Mr.  Devlin,  whose  special  organisation,  the  An- 
cient Order  of  Hibernians,  a  political  and  secta- 
rian "friendly  society,"  stood  to  gain  greatly  in 
power  from  the*  Insurance  Bill. 

Mr.  Redmond  was  not  very  active  in  political 
[131] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

life  during  the  year  191 1.  He  was  suffering, 
perhaps,  from  a  certain  reaction  after  the  strain 
of  the  past  few  years,  and  reserving  his  energies 
for  the  coming  Home  Rule  struggle.  In  October 
he  received  a  tremendous  ovation  in  Dublin  on 
unveiling  the  Parnell  Monument.  It  may  be  re- 
marked in  passing  that  the  fact  that  the  monu- 
ment bore  on  its  base  Parnell's  somewhat  trite 
remark  that  "no  man  could  fix  boundaries  to  the 
march  of  a  nation"  drew  upon  Mr.  Redmond  new 
charges  of  being  a  "separatist."  His  own  words, 
however,  stood  on  record — "Separation,"  he  had 
said,  "is  impossible;  and,  if  it  were  not  impos- 
sible, it  is  undesirable." 

One  of  his  few  public  utterances  in  Ireland  in 
191 1  was  made  at  Baltinglass  on  October  23rd. 
Here  he  told  his  audience  that  the  Home  Rule  Bill 
was  almost  completed,  and  that  in  its  principles 
and  details  it  would  be  a  Bill  satisfactory  to  Ire- 
land. A  short  time  after  this  meeting  he  met 
with  a  somewhat  serious  car  accident  near  his 
home  at  Aughavanagh,  and  his  health  was  im- 
paired for  some  time.  His  first  public  reappear- 
ance was  at  Mr.  Churchill's  meeting  in  Belfast 
in  February,  19 12,  to  which  reference  is  made 
in  the  next  chapter.  In  the  following  April,  im- 
mediately before  the  introduction  of  the  Home 
Rule  Bill,  he  addressed  in  O'Connell  Street  one  of 

[132] 


TOWARDS  HOME  RULE 

the  greatest  Nationalist  demonstrations  that  ever 
assembled  in  Dublin:  over  100,000  people,  it  was 
estimated,  were  present.  Mr.  Redmond  then  an- 
nounced that  the  Bill  would  be  "a  great  and  ade- 
quate one,"  and  added  the  prophecy  that  "We  will 
have  a  Parliament  sitting  in  College  Green  sooner 
than  the  most  sanguine  and  enthusiastic  man  in 
the  crowd  believes."  Rarely  did  a  political  proph- 
ecy appear  better  founded;  rarely  was  the  ful- 
filment of  such  a  prophecy  more  completely  frus- 
trated by  unforeseen  events  than  the  fulfilment 
of  this  prophecy  of  Mr.  Redmond's  was  destined 
to  be. 


[133] 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE    HOME   RULE  BILL 

THE  third  Home  Rule  Bill  was  introduced  in 
the  House  of  Commons  by  Mr.  Asquith 
on  April  nth,  19 12.  In  his  introductory  speech 
the  Prime  Minister  said  that  he  had  always  pre- 
sented the  case  for  Irish  Home  Rule  as  the  first 
step  to  a  larger  and  more  comprehensive  scheme 
of  local  self-government,  and  recommended  the 
Bill  as  being  framed  with  that  end  in  view. 

Mr.  Redmond's  speech  on  the  introduction  of 
this  Bill  is  interesting  as  defining  his  position  in 
regard  to  several  points  in  connection  with  the 
Anglo-Irish  controversy.  Dealing  with  the  ques- 
tion of  separation,  he  admitted  that  there  had  al- 
ways been  a  certain  section  of  Irishmen  who 
would  like  to  see  separation  from  England,  but 
dismissed  them  as  a  small  section  who  would  soon 
disappear  when  Irishmen  were  given  the  manage- 
ment of  their  own  affairs.  "Mr.  Parnell,"  he 
proceeded,  "speaking  in  1886,  said  he  specifically 
accepted  as  final  the  settlement  of  the  Irish  de- 

[134] 


THE  HOME  RULE  BILL 

mand  for  a  Statutory  Parliament  for  Ireland.  I 
say  that  Mr.  Parnell  was  never  a  separatist,  and 
that  we  stand  in  this  matter  precisely  where  Par- 
nell stood.  We  want  peace  for  our  country,  and 
I  say  that  Ireland  is  willing  to  accept  a  Statutory 
Parliament  created  by  statute  of  this  Imperial 
Parliament  as  a  final  settlement." 

In  the  matter  of  religious  safeguards  he  stated 
his  position  in  a  sentence — "Put  into  the  Bill 
whatever  safeguards  you  like."  Coming  to  the 
question  of  finance,  he  traversed  the  Tory  argu- 
ment that  England  was  being  asked  to  pay  for 
giving  Ireland  the  privilege  of  managing  her  own 
afifairs,  and  declared  that  in  any  case  "it  is  an  ut- 
terly unworthy  point  of  view  for  the  rich  coun- 
try to  take,  when  we  are  considering  a  great 
question  of  this  kind,  to  haggle  about  the  terms. 
If  Home  Rule  is  imjust  and  wrong,  refuse  it.  If 
it  is  just  and  right,  what  consistent  argument 
can  you  make  founded  upon  a  few  paltry  pounds, 
shillings  and  pence?"  From  the  Irish  point  of 
view  he  expressed  the  opinion  that,  on  the  ques- 
tion of  finance,  this  was  a  far  better  Bill  than 
either  that  of  1886  or  that  of  1893. 

His  reference  to  the  reduction  of  the  Irish 
membership  at  Westminster  was  especially  in- 
teresting; it  was  amplified  in  his  speech  to  the 
National  Convention  a  fortnight  later,  to  which 

[135] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

I  shall  refer  in  a  moment.  On  this  question,  he 
said,  he  had  a  perfectly  consistent  record.  "When 
under  the  Home  Rule  Bill  of  1886  the  proposal 
was  made  to  exclude  all  Irish  representation  I 
agreed  to  it  with  great  reluctance,  and  I  looked 
forward  to  the  time  when  Irish  representatives 
would  be  called  back  with  the  other  representa- 
tives of  the  United  Kingdom  in  what  would  then 
be  a  real  Imperial  Parliament.  The  point  I  want 
to  make  is  this — that  until  the  system  is  com- 
pleted you  must  have  a  certain  amount  of  abnor- 
mality in  your  proceedings  here ;  but  the  best  way 
to  meet  any  anomaly  has,  in  my  opinion,  been 
undoubtedly  taken  by  the  Government  in  hav- 
ing a  reduced  number  of  Irish  representatives  in 
the  House.  For  my  part  you  might  have  reduced 
them  more.  .  .  .  We  also  desire  that  we  should 
be  here  under  such  conditions  that  it  would  be 
impossible  for  us  to  govern  the  decision  on  Scotch, 
Welsh,  and  English  Bills.  We  are  only  brought 
here  because  it  is  necessary  that  this  symbol  of 
Imperial  unity  shall  be  maintained." 

The  concluding  passage  of  Mr.  Redmond's 
speech  may  be  quoted  at  length.  "Viewing  this 
Bill  as  a  whole  I  say — and  I  speak  for  my  col- 
leagues on  these  benches — this  is  a  great  meas- 
ure, and  a  measure  adequate  to  carry  out  the  ob- 
jects of  its  promoters.     It  is  a  great  measure, 

[136] 


THE  HOME  RULE  BILL 

and  we  welcome  it.  This  Bill  will  be  submitted 
to  an  Irish  National  Convention,  and  I  shall  with- 
out hesitation  recommend  to  the  Convention  the 
acceptance  of  this  Bill.  If  I  may  say  so  reverent- 
ly, I  personally  thank  God  that  /  have  lived  to  see 
this  day.  I  believe  this  Bill  will  pass  into  law. 
I  believe  it  will  result  in  the  greater  unity  and 
strength  of  the  Empire.  I  believe  it  will  put  an 
end,  once  and  for  all,  to  the  wretched  ill-will,  sus- 
picion and  dissatisfaction  that  have  existed  in 
Ireland,  and  the  suspicion  and  misunderstand- 
ing that  have  existed  in  this  country  with  regard 
to  Ireland.  I  believe  it  will  have  the  effect  of 
turning  Ireland  in  time  into  a  happy  and  pros- 
perous country,  with  a  united  and  contented 
people. 

"I  well  remember  the  introduction  of  the  Home 
Rule  Bill  of  1886.  To-night  another  Prime  Min- 
ister extends  the  hand  of  friendship  to  Ireland 
under  much  happier  auspices.  Ireland  to-day  is 
peaceable  beyond  record.  She  has  almost  en- 
tirely cast  aside  her  suspicion  and  rancour  to- 
wards this  country,  and  England,  I  believe,  to-day 
is  more  willing  than  ever  before  in  history  to  ad- 
mit Ireland  on  terms  of  equality,  liberty,  and 
loyalty  into  the  great  community  of  nations  which 
make  the  great  Empire.  From  the  great  men  of 
every  self-governing  colony  of  the  Empire  have 

[137] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

come  messages  all  in  favour  of  Home  Rule,  bless- 
ing this  Bill,  and  giving  encouragement  to  the 
right  hon.  gentleman  who  introduced  it.  I  pray 
earnestly  that  the  Bill  may  pass,  and  that  it  may 
achieve  the  objects  its  promoters  have  in  view, 
and  that,  in  the  beautiful  words  of  the  prayer 
with  which  the  proceedings  of  the  House  are 
opened  every  afternoon:  'The  result  of  all  our 
councils  may  be  the  maintenance  of  true  religion 
and  justice,  the  safety,  honour  and  happiness  of 
the  King,  the  public  health,  peace  and  tranquillity 
of  the  realm,  and  the  unity  and  knitting  together 
therein  of  the  hearts  of  all  persons  and  estates, 
the  same  in  true  Christian  love  and  charity.' " 

The  National  Convention  to  consider  the  Bill 
was  held  in  the  Dublin  Mansion  House  on  April 
23rd.  In  his  speech  to  that  assembly  Mr.  Red- 
mond fully  made  good  his  promise  in  the  House 
of  Commons  that  he  would  without  hesitation 
recommend  the  acceptance  of  the  Bill.  He  began 
his  speech  with  the  assertion  that  the  introduc- 
tion of  a  Bill  of  the  character  of  the  Home  Rule 
Bill  was  a  complete  vindication  and  justification 
of  the  policy  which  the  Irish  Party  had  pursued 
for  three  years  in  the  face  of  unparalleled  diffi- 
culties, and  of  much  discouragement  and  even 
attack  in  Ireland.  The  Home  Rule  Bill,  he  de- 
clared, was  the  greatest  and  the  most  satisfactory 

[138] 


THE  HOME  RULE  BH^L 

measure  of  Home  Rule  ever  offered  to  the 
country.  It  was  something  far  more  valuable 
to  Ireland  than  repeal  of  the  Union ;  for  Grattan's 
Parliament  was  independent  only  in  theory,  but 
was  dependent  and  impotent  in  practice,  with  its 
measures  subject  to  the  veto  of  the  King  and 
Council  in  England,  and  its  Executive  responsible 
not  to  the  Parliament  of  Ireland,  but  to  the  Par- 
liament of  England.  Under  the  Home  Rule  Bill, 
on  the  other  hand,  Ireland  would  have  for  the 
first  time  an  Executive  Government  dependent 
on  the  confidence  of  the  Irish  Parliament,  which 
would  have  control,  subject  to  a  few  exceptions, 
of  every  purely  Irish  affair.  **Now,"  said  Mr. 
Redmond,  ''mark  the  first  result  of  that.  Dub- 
lin Castle,  with  all  its  evil,  blood-stained  tradi- 
tions, disappears;  that  horrible  system  of  anti- 
Irish,  unrepresentative,  centralised  bureaucracy, 
which  has  misgoverned  and  tortured  and  ruined 
Ireland,  crumbles  instantly  into  dust,  and  the 
new  Irish  Executive  will  control  every  Irish  board 
and  every  Irish  department." 

The  "reserved  services"  under  the  Bill  Mr. 
Redmond  divided  into  two  categories.  In  the 
first  of  these  he  comprised  "things  which  I  say 
here  to-day  we  never  asked  for  and  do  not  want" 
— the  Army  and  Navy,  foreign  relations,  coinage, 
and  so  forth.    Under  this  heading  he  included 

[139] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

also  the  reservation  with  regard  to  religious  as- 
cendency. These  safeguards,  he  declared,  were 
unnecessary;  but,  "though  I  believed  them  un- 
necessary, and  though  in  a  sense  they  are  humil- 
iating to  our  national  pride,  still,  so  long  as  there 
were  a  dozen  men  of  our  race  and  kin  who  en- 
tertained honest  fears  on  these  subjects,  I  would 
be  willing  to  put  any  conceivable  safeguard  in 
the  Bill  to  lull  their  suspicions  to  rest." 

With  regard  to  the  second  category  of  "re- 
served services"  he  pointed  out  that  all  of  them 
that  Ireland  cared  about  would  come  with  auto- 
matic precision  under  the  control  of  Ireland  with- 
in a  comparatively  short  number  of  years.  He 
thought  that  the  reservation  of  the  Savings  Bank 
for  a  certain  number  of  years  would  be  useful  in 
order  to  prevent  a  plot  being  set  on  foot  to  dam- 
age Irish  credit  and  damage  the  Irish  Govern- 
ment. Similarly  he  approved  the  reservation  of, 
land  purchase  on  the  ground  that  it  was  only  rea- 
sonable that  while  the  system  of  land  purchase 
was  being  carried  out  by  Imperial  credit  the  Im- 
perial authority  should  insist  on  fully  safeguard- 
ing the  security  for  the  loans;  anything  else,  in 
fact,  would  bring  land  purchase,  which  he  de- 
sired to  see  rapidly  completed,  to  an  absolute 
deadlock. 

Replying  to  objections  taken  in  some  quarters 
[140] 


THE  HOME  RULE  BH^L 

to  the  nominated  Senate,  he  repeated  his  personal 
conviction,  from  his  reading  of  the  history  of 
the  world,  and  especially  the  history  of  the  Col- 
onies, that  a  nominated  Senate  was  a  more  demo- 
cratic body  than  a  Senate  elected  on  a  narrow 
franchise,  provided  always  that  three  conditions 
were  fulfilled — that  the  nomination  should  be  for 
a  short  number  of  years,  that  a  large  proportion 
of  the  Senators  should  go  out  of  office  every  two 
or  three  years,  and  that  there  should  be  a  satis- 
factory provision  as  to  a  deadlock  between  the 
two  Houses.  All  these  three  conditions  were 
fulfilled  in  the  Home  Rule  Bill.  He  added 
another  reason  why  he  was  in  favour  of  a  nomi- 
nated Senate.  This  was  that  he  wanted  the  Irish 
Second  Chamber  from  the  very  start  to  be  crowd- 
ed with  men  who  had  not  been  partisans  of  the 
National  Party  in  the  past  at  all — men  of  busi- 
ness, men  of  commerce,  men  representing  the 
professions,  the  arts  and  sciences  and  literature, 
of  Ireland,  men  having  large  stakes  in  the  coun- 
try. "I  doubt,"  said  Mr.  Redmond,  ''if  they 
would  be  elected  at  the  start,  and  I  want  to  see 
them  at  the  start." 

On  the  subject  of  the  financial  clauses  of  the 
Bill  he  was  emphatic.  "I  stand  here,"  he  said, 
"to  support  and  vindicate  the  financial  clauses  of 
the  Bill.     I  say  they  need  no  apology  from  any 

[141] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

one.  I  say  they  constitute  a  good  scheme,  a  far 
better  one  than  the  scheme  in  the  Bill  of  1886  or 
the  Bill  of  1893."  Under  it,  he  claimed,  every 
penny  of  Irish  taxation,  no  matter  from  what 
source,  would  be  expended  on  the  Government 
of  Ireland;  and  in  addition  England  had  to  pro- 
vide a  large  annual  sum  out  of  Imperial  sources 
for  an  indefinite  number  of  years.  This  period, 
he  hoped,  would  be  short,  because  "we  want  to 
pay  our  own  way  in  this  country,  and  it  is  hu- 
miliating to  our  national  pride  to  receive  any  sub- 
sidy, even  at  the  commencement,  from  England. 
We  want  to  stand  on  our  own  legs;  hence  it  is 
that  I  rejoice  that  this  Bill  provides  machinery 
whereby,  when  through  the  increasing  prosper- 
ity of  Ireland  the  deficit  disappears,  Ireland  will 
enter  into  an  arrangement  to  pay  her  fair  pro- 
portion of  Imperial  expenses,  and  we  shall  get 
absolute  control  of  the  collection  of  our  taxes." 
The  only  thing  Ireland  had  not  got,  he  declared, 
was  the  general  power  of  protection  against  Eng- 
land and  the  world,  and  he  did  not  know  that 
Ireland  wanted  anything  of  the  kind.  His  own 
personal  view  was  that  such  a  power  would  be 
valueless  to  Ireland;  in  any  case  such  a  power 
clearly  could  not  be  got  from  a  Free  Trade  Gov- 
ernment and  Parliament. 
With  regard  to  the  reduction  of  the  Irish  mem- 
[142] 


THE  HOME  RULE  BH^L 

bership  at  Westminster  Mr.  Redmond  assumed 
that  most  of  his  audience  would  be  glad  to  see  no 
members  in  the  Imperial  Parliament  at  all,  so 
that  Ireland  could  be  concentrated  entirely  on  the 
Irish  Parliament  and  Irish  affairs.  He  admitted 
frankly  that  he  was  himself  one  of  those  who 
desired  to  continue  to  share  in  the  governing  of 
the  Empire  which  Irishmen  had  taken  a  large 
share  in  building.  He  took  the  view,  however, 
that  the  Irish  members  must  not  remain  in  the 
Imperial  Parliament  in  such  large  numbers  as 
to  constitute  a  constant  temptation  for  the  discus- 
sion there  of  Irish  affairs.  On  the  other  hand 
he  pointed  out  that  the  Bill  provided  that  when 
the  Irish  deficit  disappeared,  and  the  new  finan- 
cial arrangement  was  to  be  made,  the  Irish  mem- 
bers were  to  go  back  to  the  Imperial  Parliament 
in  their  full  numbers  in  order  to  decide  upon  that 
agreement. 

The  Bill,  he  repeated  at  the  end  of  his  speech 
as  he  had  said  at  the  beginning,  was  a  great  Bill ; 
and  as  to  the  question  of  its  amendment  he 
claimed  that  the  men  on  whose  shoulders  the  Irish 
people  had  cast  the  responsibility  of  passing  the 
measure  into  law  and  safeguarding  it  through 
the  future  must  have  the  power  of  deciding  for 
themselves,  on  the  ground  and  in  accordance  with 
the  exigencies  of  the  situation,  all  such  matters 

[143] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

of  policy  and  tactics.  Finally  he  declared:  "I 
say  to  you  that  it  is  your  duty  to  accept  this  Bill, 
not  with  grudging  or  lukewarmness,  but  with 
alacrity  and  enthusiasm,"  and  moved  a  resolution 
accepting  it.  This  resolution  was  passed  unani- 
mously and  with  enthusiasm.  A  further  resolu- 
tion, "recognising  that  the  satisfactory  character 
of  the  Home  Rule  Bill  is  due  in  large  measure  to 
the  skill,  sagacity,  and  statesmanship  of  Mr.  Red- 
mond and  his  Parliamentary  colleagues,"  left  the 
question  of  proposing  amendments  entirely  to  his 
judgment  and  discretion.  The  Bill,  in  fact,  was 
passed  without  substantial  alteration. 

The  Home  Rule  Bill  was  read  a  second  time  on 
May  9th.  The  concluding  portion  of  Mr.  Red- 
mond's speech  on  this  occasion,  assumes,  in  retro- 
spect, the  character  as  it  were  of  prophecy.  "If 
I  were  an  Englishman,"  he  said,  "judging  this 
question  solely  from  the  point  of  view  of  foreign 
policy  and  military  strength,  I  would  say  that 
Home  Rule  for  Ireland  was  the  most  urgent  step 
you  could  take  for  the  safeguarding  of  the  coun- 
try in  the  future.  I  contend  that  the  Irish  ques- 
tion, as  an  Imperial  and  even  as  a  British  con- 
cern, has  grown  in  magnitude  and  urgency. 
Nearly  four  millions  of  Irishmen  have  gone  to 
other  countries  (since  the  Union)  where  they 
have  increased  and  multiplied  and  flourished  ex- 

[144] 


THE  HOME  RULE  BILL 

ceedingly.  To-day  they  and  their  descendants 
constitute  a  source  of  strength  to  the  Irish  cause, 
and  a  source  of  potential  strength  or  potential 
weakness  to  this  Empire.  The  Irish  race  have  an 
influence  in  every  English-speaking  land  in  the 
world,  the  nature  of  which  is  not  properly  under- 
stood by  many  people  in  this  country.  Sir  Ed- 
ward Grey  (the  Foreign  Secretary)  summed  up 
the  matter  in  these  words: —  'The  goodwill  of 
the  Irish  race  is  worth  having ;  it  counts  for  some- 
thing in  every  part  of  the  world  that  you  care 
most  for.'  " 

"I  want  to  point  out  this,"  Mr.  Redmond  pro- 
ceeded in  a  memorable  passage —  "that  that  in- 
fluence has  grown  considerably  in  recent  times, 
and  the  reason  is  that  the  citizens  of  Irish  descent 
in  the  United  States  and  in  your  own  self-govern- 
ing Colonies  have  advanced  immensely  in  mate- 
rial wealth,  in  education,  and  in  political  intelli- 
gence. That  influence  does  not  stand  alone. 
Citizens  of  German  birth  and  descent  in  the 
United  States — a  great  community — have  lately 
taken  a  leaf  out  of  the  Irish- American  book. 
They  too  have  found  that,  while  becoming  thor- 
oughly assimilated  with  American  life  and  loyal 
American  citizens,  a  certain  separateness  and 
solidarity  in  a  racial  sense  gives  them  a  power 
which  they  would  otherwise  lack.     I  ask  the 

[146] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

House  of  Commons  seriously  to  consider,  when  it 
comes  to  American  relations  with  a  Power  to 
which  German  sentiment  may  be  opposed,  and 
from  which  Irish  sentiment  remains  alienated, 
the  joint  influence  of  these  two  elements  upon 
public  opinion  and  action  is  a  factor  which  every 
thoughtful  Imperialist  ought  to  bear  in  mind. 
For  myself,  all  I  do  is  to  point  to  your  recent  ex- 
perience in  treaty-making  in  America  as  afford- 
ing some  side-light  on  the  question.  I  conclude 
on  this  note — that  the  Irish  question  is  an  Im- 
perial one  of  the  first  magnitude  and  urgency, 
and  that  if  in  making  ready  for  these  events 
which  you  may  have  to  face  in  the  future  you 
want  to  present  to  the  world  a  spectacle  of  rare 
solidarity;  if  you  want  to  draw  your  Empire  in 
a  single  bond  of  sympathy;  above  all,  if  you  want 
to  remove  the  obstacles  which  stand  in  the  way 
of  that  natural  community  and  understanding 
which  should  exist  between  this  country  and  the 
great  English-speaking  Republic  of  America,  you 
have  the  means  of  doing  it  now  by  passing  this 
Bill  into  law."  It  is  unnecessary  to  stress  the 
significance  of  this  prophetic  utterance  of  Mr. 
Redmond's  in  the  light  of  after  events. 

The  Home  Rule  Bill  was  read  a  second  time 
in  May,  1912,  and  a  third  time  in  January,  1913. 
Between  those  dates  occurred  a  memorable  event 
[146] 


THE  HOME  RULE  BH^L 

in  the  political  history  of  Ireland — the  signing  of 
the  Ulster  Covenant  on  September  28th,  1912. 
The  movement  of  organised  resistance  to  Home 
Rule  in  Ulster  which  culminated  in  this  event 
dated  from  a  year  before,  when  the  Ulster  Union- 
ist Council  of  four  hundred  members,  represent- 
ing Unionist  associations  in  Ulster  constituencies, 
met  in  Belfast  and  resolved:  (i)  That  it  was 
their  imperative  duty  to  make  arrangements  for 
a  Provisional  Government  of  Ulster;  and  (2) 
That  they  hereby  appointed  a  commission  which, 
in  consultation  with  Sir  Edward  Carson,  should 
frame  and  submit  a  constitution  for  this  Pro- 
visional Government.  For  a  year  nothing  more 
was  heard  of  the  work  of  the  secret  commission ; 
but  the  state  of  Unionist  feeling  in  Ulster  was 
sufficiently  exhibited  when,  in  February,  19 12,  it 
was  proposed  that  Mr.  Winston  Churchill,  First 
Lord  of  the  Admiralty,  should  address  a  Home 
Rule  meeting  in  the  Ulster  Hall  in  Belfast.  The 
Harbour  Board  refused  to  allow  Mr.  Churchill  a 
reception  as  First  Lord.  The  Ulster  Hall — a 
public  building — was  seized  and  held  for  a  week 
by  a  body  of  Orangemen,  and  Mr.  Churchill  was 
driven  to  hold  his  meeting  in  a  football  ground. 
Public  emotion  culminated  on  "Ulster  Day," 
September  28th,  19 12,  when  the  Covenant, 
drawn  up  by  a  committee  of  five  under  Sir  Ed- 

[147] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

ward  Carson,  was  signed  by  218,000  men.  The 
Covenant  pledged  the  signatories  to  use  "all 
means  that  may  be  found  necessary  to  resist  the 
present  conspiracy"  of  Home  Rule.  The  reli- 
gious character  with  which  the  proceedings  were 
invested  struck  many  observers  as  impressive, 
and  a  special  correspondent  of  the  London  Times 
applied  to  them  the  phrase  of  an  ''offensive  and 
defensive  alliance  with  Divinity." 

Mr.  Redmond,  in  common  with  the  Govern- 
ment and  the  Liberal  Party,  refused  as  yet  to 
take  the  Ulster  movement  very  seriously.  In  his 
public  utterances  he  professed  to  regard  it  as  a 
gigantic  piece  of  bluff.  It  is  probable  that,  him- 
self a  convinced  constitutionalist,  he  had  some  dif- 
ficulty in  believing  that  the  Ulster  leaders  would 
translate  their  threats  into  action,  and  certainly 
that  the  Tory  party  in  England — the  "constitu- 
tional party" — woUld  give  the  movement  the  open 
and  organised  backing  without  which  it  could 
have  no  hope  of  success. 

In  the  year  19 13,  however,  the  situation 
changed.  On  January  31st  the  Ulster  Unionist 
Council  of  four  hundred  announced  the  passing 
by  them  of  a  notable  resolution: —  "We  ratify 
and  confirm  the  further  steps  so  far  taken  by 
the  Special  Commission,  and  approve  of  the  draft 
resolutions  and  articles  of  the  Ulster  Provisional 
[148] 


THE  HOME  RULE  BH^L 

Government  this  day  submitted  to  us,  and  ap- 
point the  members  of  the  Special  Commission  to 
act  as  the  Executive  thereunder."  During  the 
year  efforts  were  made  to  organise  and  equip  as 
corps  of  Volunteers  the  members  of  Unionist 
Clubs  which  had  long  been  formed  throughout 
the  Province.  The  strength  of  the  Volunteer 
force  during  the  year  was  estimated  to  increase 
to  between  100,000  and  150,000  men.  The  force 
was  equipped  by  the  Provisional  Government, 
with  funds  largely  provided  by  English  sym- 
pathisers, on  a  sumptuous  scale.  In  December, 
19 13,  it  was  reckoned  that  between  30,000  and 
40,000  rifles  and  20,000  pistols  had  been  sent  into 
Ulster  during  the  year. 

Qn  September  24th  the  "Four  Hundred"  met  in 
Belfast  to  decree  themselves  the  Central  Author- 
ity of  the  Provisional  Government  of  Ulster,  and 
its  Standing  Committee  of  seventy-six  was  de- 
clared to  be  the  Executive  Committee  of  the 
Provisional  Government.  Sir  Edward  Carson 
was  appointed  head  of  the  Central  Authority, 
with  a  number  of  Committees  under  him  repre- 
senting all  the  attributes  of  a  self-contained  State. 
The  Provisional  Government  was  now  ready  to 
be  called  into  full  working  order  at  the  command 
of  Sir  Edward  Carson.  He  had  a  little  earlier 
in  the  year  made  the  significant  statement  that 

[149] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

to  his  personal  knowledge  "the  forces  of  the 
Crown  were  already  dividing  into  hostile  camps." 
Despite  these  sinister  developments  in  Ulster 
Mr.  Redmond  still  maintained  his  attitude  of 
reserve  and  composure.  His  chief  lieutenant, 
Mr.  Devlin,  urged  the  Government  to  pursue  its 
way  undisturbed  by  menaces  from  Belfast.  The 
worst  that  could  happen,  he  calculated,  was  riot- 
ing in  Ulster  on  the  day  that  Home  Rule  passed 
into  law.  On  November  25th,  1913,  however, 
there  emerged  an  independent  Nationalist  reply 
to  the  Ulster  movement.  It  took  the  form  of  a 
manifesto  calling  upon  Irishmen  to  "maintain 
the  rights  and  liberties  common  to  all  the  people 
of  Ireland."  "A  plan  had  been  deliberately 
adopted  by  one  of  the  great  English  political  par- 
ties, advocated  by  the  leaders  of  that  party  and 
by  its  numerous  organs  in  the  Press,  and  brought 
systematically  to  bear  on  English  public  opinion, 
to  make  the  display  of  military  force  and  the 
menace  of  armed  violence  the  determining  fac- 
tor in  the  future  relations  between  this  country 
and  Great  Britain."  Therefore,  if  Irishmen  "fail 
to  take  such  measures  as  may  effectually  reject 
this  policy,  we  become  politically  the  worst  de- 
graded population  in  Europe,  and  no  longer 
worthy  of  the  name  of  nation."  Provocation  had 
just  been  offered  even  to  the  most  pacific  of  Na- 

[150] 


THE  HOME  RULE  BH^L 

tionalists  by  speeches  like  that  of  Sir  F.  E.  Smith, 
then  Mr.  Smith,  comparing  Nationalists  with 
Covenanters,  and  asking  with  a  sneer  "were  the 
former  willing  to  fight  for  Home  Rule."  Such, 
proceeded  the  Nationalist  manifesto,  was  the  oc- 
casion, "not  altogether  unfortunate,"  which  had 
brought  about  the  inception  of  the  Irish  Volun- 
teer movement.  "But  the  Volunteers,  once  they 
have  been  enrolled,  will  form  a  permanent  ele- 
ment in  the  national  life  under  a  National  Gov- 
ernment." 

The  Irish  Volunteer  movement  was  started — 
it  is  a  significant  fact — quite  independently  of 
Mr.  Redmond  and  the  Irish  Parliamentary  Party. 
Its  promoters,  however,  were  not  in  the  main  ill- 
disposed  towards  his  party  or  his  policy.  The 
promoters  of  the  inaugural  meeting  of  the  Vol- 
unteers in  Dublin  were  Mr.  John  MacNeill,  Pro- 
fessor of  Old  Irish  History  at  the  National  Uni- 
versity, and  Mr.  Lawrence  Kettle,  a  brother  of 
the  late  Lieutenant  T.  M.  Kettle,  a  former  mem- 
ber of  the  Irish  Party  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
Neither  Mr.  MacNeill  nor  Mr.  Kettle  had  hith- 
erto taken  any  prominent  part  in  politics,  but 
both  were  known  as  strong  Nationalists  of  the 
constitutional  sort.  Colonel  Maurice  Moore,  a 
brother  of  Mr.  George  Moore,  the  novelist,  who 
had  served  with  distinction  in  the  South  African 

[161] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

war,  put  his  military  experience  at  the  disposal 
of  the  new  organisation;  he  was  himself  a  sup- 
porter of  Mr.  Redmond.  Some  of  those,  how- 
ever, who  had  associated  themselves  with  the 
foundation  of  the  Volunteers,  and  notably  Sir 
Roger  Casement,  were  suspect  in  the  eyes  of  the 
orthodox  Nationalist. 

Colonel  Moore,  in  the  evidence  which  he  of- 
fered to  the  Royal  Commission  on  the  Rebellion 
in  1916,  gave  an  interesting  description  of  the 
composition  of  the  original  committee.  "There 
were  about  two  extremists,  and  four  or  five  boys 
under  their  domination:  these  latter  men  were 
mild  and  quiet  and  by  no  means  unreasonable. 
Five  or  six  Sinn  Feiners  were  in  a  separate  group. 
They  might  be  described  as  extreme  Home  Rul- 
ers ;  they  did  not  approve  of  the  methods  of  the 
Parliamentary  Party,  but  were  not  revolution- 
ists. .  .  .  There  were  a  few  like  MacNeill,  Pearse, 
McDonagh,  Plunkett,  and  O'Rahilly  who  be- 
longed to  no  special  political  party;  they  were 
idealists.  The  remainder  of  the  Committee  were 
moderate  men,  inclined  to  follow  the  Parliamen- 
tary Party."  It  will  be  interesting  to  note  how 
some  of  the  Sinn  Fein  party  and  some  of  the 
idealists  gradually  became  extremists  and  merged 
with  the  Fenians. 

The  attitude  of  Mr.  Redmond  towards  this 
[152] 


THE  HOME  RULE  BILL 

new  movement  was  at  the  outset  distinctly  un- 
sympathetic. He  did  not  openly  oppose  it,  but 
neither  did  he  support  it,  and  it  was  without  any 
encouragement  from  him  that  the  movement  de- 
veloped. This  attitude  of  Mr.  Redmond  towards 
the  Volunteers  may  be  attributed  to  three  main 
reasons.  In  the  first  place,  and  least  important, 
was  a  certain  jealousy  natural  in  the  leader  of  a 
disciplined  party  which  consistently  deprecated 
independent  action  in  Irish  politics.  The  party 
had  not  been  consulted  with  regard  to  the  new 
departure.  In  the  next  place,  Mr.  Redmond 
doubtless  feared — and  events  were  to  justify  his 
fear — that  the  organisation  might  develop  along 
extreme  lines.  Certain  passages  in  the  manifesto, 
such,  for  instance,  as  that  the  occasion  of  the 
Volunteer  movement  (the  arming  of  Protestant 
Ulster)  was  "not  altogether  unfortunate,"  to- 
gether with  the  statement  that  the  Volunteers, 
once  they  had  been  enrolled,  would  form  "a  per- 
manent element  in  the  national  life  under  a  Na- 
tional Government,"  were  disquieting.  Mr.  Red- 
mond had  accepted  the  Home  Rule  Bill  as  a  final 
settlement,  and  the  Bill  expressly  removed  the 
right  of  maintaining  armed  forces  from  the 
power  of  the  Irish  Parliament. 

Finally,  and  most  important  of  all,  Mr.  Red- 
mond objected  to  the  Volunteer  movement  as  a 

[163] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

strict  constitutionalist,  both  temperamentally  and 
politically.  His  own  natural  bent  was  opposed  to 
extra-constitutional  action;  moreover,  at  this 
time  the  hopes  of  the  Irish  Party  were  entirely 
based  on  the  alliance  with  English  Liberalism, 
and  Mr.  Redmond  therefore  wished  to  act  accord- 
ing to  the  most  strict  constitutional  forms.  Here, 
indeed,  seemed  to  lie  the  whole  moral  strength 
of  his  and  his  party's  position  as  against  Union- 
ist Ulster  and  the  English  Tory  Party,  which 
were  now  definitely  committed  to  a  policy  of 
armed  threats  and  conditional  rebellion. 

Despite  the  coldness  of  the  Parliamentary 
Party,  the  Irish  Volunteer  movement  proved  ex- 
tremely popular.  Large  numbers  of  men  were 
enrolled,  and  drilling  became  very  general 
throughout  the  South  of  Ireland.  Mr.  Redmond, 
far  too  astute  a  political  leader  to  attempt  with- 
out strong  reason  to  run  counter  to  popular  opin- 
ion and  refuse  to  accept  the  fait  accompli,  rapid- 
ly came  to  the  conclusion  that,  if  the  movement 
could  not  be  suppressed,  it  must  in  the  alternative 
be  controlled.  He  proposed,  therefore,  that  the 
Volunteer  organisation  should  be  brought  into  of- 
ficial relations  with  the  political  organisation  by 
the  co-option  to  its  governing  committee  of  suffi- 
cient "tried  and  true"  Nationalists — that  is,  rec- 
og;nised  supporters  of  the  Parliamentary  Party 

[154] 


THE  HOME  RULE  BILL 

— to  command  a  majority  upon  it.  Twenty-five 
such  substantial  men  he  suggested  that  he  should 
nominate  himself. 

He  did  not  carry  his  point  as  to  the  control  of 
the  Volunteers  without  some  difficulty.  It  needed 
a  threat,  if  his  nominations  were  rejected,  to  re- 
gard the  organisation  as  a  body  of  factionists 
hostile  to  the  Parliamentary  Party  to  induce  the 
original  committee  to  accept  them.  Finally  Mr. 
MacNeill  and  his  friends  accepted  Mr.  Redmond's 
ultimatum  with  what  grace  they  could,  and  the 
organisation,  now  affiliated  with  the  Party, 
worked  imder  the  new  controlling  body  fairly 
harmoniously  up  to  the  outbreak  of  war,  with  Mr. 
Redmond  as  titular  President  of  the  Volunteers. 
He  displayed  at  no  time,  however,  any  great  in- 
terest in  the  movement. 

It  is  necessary  to  note  here,  since  it  was 
destined  to  play  a  very  important  part  in  the  de- 
velopment of  the  situation  after  the  outbreak  of 
war,  the  growth  and  existence  of  a  third  armed 
force  in  Ireland  besides  the  Ulster  Volunteers 
and  the  Irish  Volunteers.  This  was  the  body 
known  as  the  Irish  Citizen  Army,  whose  forma- 
tion preceded  that  of  the  Irish  Volunteers  and 
was  entirely  distinct  from  them.  "The  Irish 
Citizen  Army,"  it  was  stated  by  James  Connolly 
in  his  paper.  The  Workers'  Republic,  in  191 5, 

[165] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

"was  the  first  publicly  organised  armed  citizen 
force  south  of  the  Boyne.  Its  constitution  pledged 
and  still  pledges  its  members  to  work  for  an 
Irish  Republic  and  for  the  emancipation  of  la- 
bour." 

The  year  1908  had  marked  the  entrance  of  a 
new  factor  into  Irish  Nationalism — Labour 
under  the  leadership  of  James  Larkin,  who  found 
in  the  Dublin  slums  a  fertile  ground  for  breeding 
the  propaganda  of  revolutionary  industrialism. 
Larkin's  labour  policy  culminated  in  the  great 
Dublin  strike  of  the  winter  of  19 13,  and  it  was 
during  this  stormy  episode  that  the  Irish  Citizen 
Army,  an  armed  body  of  working-men,  was  first 
formed.  At  this  time  the  labour  movement  was 
not  yet  so  strongly  invested  with  a  NationaHst 
character  that  it  could  claim  any  support  from 
political  Nationalism,  and  the  ordinary  lines  of 
industrial  division  were  observed  in  the  strike. 
The  employers'  leader — ^who  finally  succeeded  in 
breaking  the  strike  at  the  cost  of  creating  in  the 
Dublin  slums  a  bitterness  of  discontent  which 
was  to  contribute  powerfully  towards  the  insur- 
rection of  1916 — was  Mr.  W.  M.  Murphy,  for- 
merly a  Nationalist  member  of  Parliament  but 
now,  through  his  newspaper,  the  Irish  Indepen- 
dent, one  of  the  bitterest  critics  of  Mr.  Red- 

[156] 


THE  HOME  RULE  BILL 

mond's  policy.*  The  Ancient  Order  of  Hiber- 
nians, a  sectarian  "friendly  society"  organised  by 
Mr.  Devlin  in  the  interests  of  the  Parliamentary 
Party,  violently  opposed  the  strike,  largely  on  ac- 
count of  the  anti-clericalism  attributed  to  James 
Larkin. 

The  attitude  of  Mr.  Redmond  and  the  Party  as 
a  whole  towards  the  strike  was  one  of  strict  neu- 
trality. Politically,  between  the  fact  that  the  pro- 
tagonist of  the  employers  was  Mr.  Murphy,  and 
the  fact  that  the  taint  of  anti-clericalism — from 
which  in  earlier  years  he  had  not  himself  been 
altogether  free — clung  about  Larkin,  Mr.  Red- 
mond's position  was  very  difficult,  and  strict  neu- 
trality was,  perhaps,  the  only  possible  policy 
which  he  could  adopt  for  the  party.  Personally 
his  sympathies  as  a  man  always  humane  were 
probably  engaged  on  the  side  of  the  strikers ;  and, 
though  as  a  believer  in  reformative  rather  than 
revolutionary  means  he  must  strongly  have  dep- 

*  The  attitude  of  Mr.  Murphy  was  roiighly  that  of  the  "All-for- 
Ireland"  group ;  it  was  more  especially  identified  with  that  of  Mr. 
T.  M.  Healy.  The  main  point  of  this  criticism,  as  it  was  after- 
wards set  forth  by  Mr.  William  O'Brien,  was  that  up  to  a  certain 
point  the  consent  of  Unionist  Ulster  was  perfectly  negotiable,  and 
should  have  been  sought  at  the  time  when  the  Ulster  men's  op- 
position was  treated  with  derision  by  the  Party;  and  that,  if  such 
consent  were  honestly  sought  and  unreasonably  withheld,  the 
Party  should  have  pressed  for  a  general  Election  which  would 
give  the  Government  a  popular  mandate  to  nip  the  Carsonite 
movement  in  the  bud. 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

recated  their  methods,  his  shrewd  poHtical  in- 
stincts must  at  the  same  time  have  satisfied  him 
that,  on  any  far-seeing  view  of  affairs,  Mr.  Mur- 
phy's determination  to  break  the  strike  by  sheer 
process  of  starvation  was  a  calamitous  blunder. 
In  labour  affairs  generally  Mr.  Redmond's  atti- 
tude, in  normal  conditions,  would  have  been  of 
much  the  same  complexion  as  what  is  known  in 
England  as  "Tory  democracy."  His  connection 
with  the  great  strike — or  rather  his  aloofness 
from  it — is  noted  here  because  the  rising  of  1916, 
whose  reactions  were  to  wreck  his  policy  so  far 
as  his  own  life-time  was  concerned,  may  be  re- 
garded in  large  measure  as  a  direct  sequel  to  the 
labour  upheaval  in  Dublin  in  the  winter  of  1913. 
It  would  be  tedious,  and  it  is  unnecessary,  to 
follow  in  detail  Mr.  Redmond's  part  in  the  Par- 
liamentary struggle  over  the  Home  Rule  Bill 
from  the  date  of  its  first  introduction  in  19 12  to 
the  date  of  its  final  passage  into  law  immediately 
after  the  outbreak  of  war  in  19 14.  After  a 
stormy  session  lasting  throughout  the  whole  of 
19 1 2  the  Bill  was  carried  through  the  House  of 
Commons  for  the  first  time  and,  in  accordance 
with  expectation,  was  rejected  by  the  House  of 
Lords.  Under  the  terms  of  the  Parliament  Act 
it  had  to  be  repassed  by  the  House  of  Commons 
without  alteration  and  again  submitted  to  the 

[158] 


THE  HOME  RULE  BH^L 

Lords  in  two  successive  sessions.  This  pro- 
cedure was  adopted  in  19 13,  but  without  a  repe- 
tition of  the  detailed  debates  of  the  previous  year, 
and  the  Lords  rejected  it  for  the  second  time.  In 
the  Parliamentary  struggle  of  the  two  years,  of 
course,  Mr.  Redmond  took  a  leading  part  on  the 
Nationalist  side,  and  won  by  his  untiring  zeal, 
sagacity  and  adroitness  the  reluctant  admiration 
of  his  opponents  as  well  as  the  enthusiastic  ad- 
miration of  his  friends.  In  the  Parliamentary 
arena,  in  a  House  of  notable  Parliamentarians, 
he  filled  a  place  such  as  perhaps  not  even  Par- 
nell  had  occupied. 

In  addition  to  his  work  in  Parliament,  Mr. 
Redmond  conducted  throughout  these  two  years 
a  continuous  campaign  in  the  English  constituen- 
cies, meeting  Unionist  attack  and  consolidating 
Liberal  support.  It  was  said  of  him  that  some  of 
his  travelling  feats  during  this  campaign  were  of 
a  kind  to  test  the  endurance  of  a  younger  man, 
but  his  robust  constitution  stood  the  strain  well. 
In  the  great  English  centres  which  he  visited,  in 
London,  in  Manchester,  Liverpool,  Glasgow, 
Leeds,  Plymouth  and  other  cities  he  was  ac- 
corded enthusiastic  receptions  such  as  no  Irish 
leader  had  ever  before  received  and  such  as  few 
English  leaders  of  the  day  could  boast.  With 
all    this  he  scarcely  missed  attendance  at  the 

[169] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  BEIBiOKD 

House  of  Comnuos  ao  a  sim^  daj  wfacn  Insh 
y«ia»«r<ic  were  under  dwnwsinn,  being  in  tbc 
House  from  kng  liefore  flic  beginning  of  each 
ffftiiy  mtil  its  dose;  for,  as  he  said  afterwards 
at  a£nner  at  iibidi  be  was  entertained  bjr  bis 
oofle^oes,  be  adoed  no  man  to  do  anythiDg  iHndi 
be  was  not  prqnrod  to  do  bimsdf. 

I  may  qoote  bere  an  apprpriafinn  of  Mr.  Red- 
mood's  gifts  as  a  PailLunenlai  im  wiitlcn  im- 
mcdlitriy  after  bb  deadi  hf  tbe  Irish  Paifiamen- 
tarjr  joamafist,  Mr.  MidtoMd  IfacDonagb. 

"Mr.  John  Redmond  was  a  great  Pailiamen- 
tarian  in  crerj  sense  of  die  word.  For  many 
jcars  be  was  oat  of  the  dnminanl  and  most  es- 
teemed members  of  the  Hoose  of  Conuimnsi, 
bigidj  brrause  of  bb  gdts  of  rbararfrr  and  do- 
qocncc:  Were  be  not  an  Irisfa  Xationafist  be 
m^^  wdl  bave  a^ired  to  be  Prime  Ministrr  of 
Fjigfand^  sodi  was  bis  inirifcrt,  temperament, 
and  dnrarter;  or,  bad  be  devoted  bimsdf  to  the 
bw  instead  of  to  poGtics,  to  be  a  Jod^  of  tbe 
Hi^  Court  or  Lord  Cfaancdior.  In  the  House 
of  ConHnons  tihe  6gare  and  ^pearance  of  a  man 
tdl  in  tbe  iiialiii»g  of  an  enduring  awl  tme  im- 
pressioo  on  the  assembly.  As  tbe  Xatiooafist 
Leader  rose  to  speak  it  was  at  oocc  seen  diat  be 
bad  a  strfldng  presence:  In  babit  or  nnen  he  bad 
a  tendency  to  portlmess^  Tbe  face  was  5trof»g- 
[ifil 


THE  HOME  RULE  BHX. 

It  is  said  that  in  the  features  of  most  people 
there  is  a  hint  of  some  animal  or  bird.  The 
Roman  nose  and  piercing  eye  of  Mr.  Redmond 
suggested  the  eagle.  There  was  also  something 
of  the  eagle's  soaring  flight  in  his  lofty  and  sus- 
tained style  of  speaking.  Indeed  in  recent  years, 
since  debating  has  assumed  more  and  more  the 
qualities  of  good  conversation,  Mr.  Redmond 
might  truly  be  described  as  the  only  orator  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  His  mode  of  speech  was 
far  removed,  however,  from  the  ornate,  flowery 
and  passionate,  which  somehow  have  come  to  be 
associated  with  Irish  declamation.  Nor,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  it  stiff  or  formal  or  severe  like  so 
much  of  the  finest  oratory  of  the  British  school. 
"Mr.  Redmond's  speeches  were  models  of  lucid 
and  consecutive  exposition.  The  diction  was  al- 
ways clear  and  unhackneyed,  the  reasoning  terse 
and  penetrating.  There  were  also  many  pas- 
sages, most  moving,  expressive  of  feeling  and 
emotion,  appropriate  to  the  subject.  Mr.  Red- 
mond was  also  a  perfect  elocutionist.  The  voice 
was  melodious,  of  a  fine  compass,  and  well  modu- 
lated. The  speeches  were  made  all  the  more  tell- 
ing by  the  harmonies  of  a  cultured  delivery. 
What  gave  his  oratory  distinction  and  influence 
were  its  qualities  of  dignity,  force  and  persua- 
siveness.   Above  all  it  was  persuasiveness  that 

[161] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

appealed  most  to  the  audience.  It  was  the  mark 
of  Mr.  Redmond's  sincerity  and  earnestness. 
That  surge  of  deep  emotion,  with  its  appealing, 
moving  note,  merging  often  into  melancholy 
pathos,  at  once  arrested  the  attention  of  the 
House,  retained  it  throughout  the  speech,  and 
won  immense  sympathy.  He  always  had  a  large 
as  well  as  appreciative  audience.  I  have  heard  all 
the  chief  speeches  made  by  Mr.  Redmond  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  and  my  memory  of  the 
scene  is  invariably  the  same — the  figure  of  the 
Irish  leader  standing  conspicuously  at  the  gang- 
way corner  of  the  top  Bench  on  the  Opposition 
side,  swaying  as  he  spoke,  the  voice  resonant  and 
musical,  the  Chamber  crowded  in  every  part  with 
attentive  and  deeply  interested  members. 

"Mr.  Redmond's  direction  was  superb.  He 
could  lead,  he  could  initiate  and  inspire  policy,  he 
could  command  obedience  and  discipline.  As  well 
as  being  a  great  Parliamentary  debater  he  was  a 
consummate  Parliamentary  tactician.  He  was 
imbued  with  the  spirit  of  the  rules,  regulations, 
and  usages  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and 
understood  its  idiosyncrasies.  He  well  knew  the 
way  in  which  the  assembly  should  be  treated  in 
order  to  gain  his  ends.  Though  he  was  disposed 
always  to  be  conciliatory  in  disposition,  and  was 
never  wanting  in  courtesy,  he  could  take  a  strong 

[162] 


THE  HOME  RULE  BILL 

line  when  he  thought  the  occasion  demanded  it, 
and  be  unyielding  in  following  it  out.  With  his 
party  his  position  as  leader  was  unquestioned 
and  unshakable,  founded  as  it  was  on  the  confi- 
dence his  followers  had  in  his  devotion  to  the 
cause,  his  watchfulness  of  its  interests,  and  his 
fine  qualities  of  intellect  and  character. 

"Mr.  Redmond's  skill  as  Leader  and  ability  as 
debater  were  especially  notable  in  the  stormy  ses- 
sions immediately  before  the  war  when  the  pass- 
age of  the  Home  Rule  Act  to  the  Statute  Book 
was  constantly  interrupted  by  scenes  of  excite- 
ment and  confusion.  He  was  most  regular  in  his 
attendance.  H  he  was  not  present  at  prayers,  he 
always  came  in  early  during  questions.  How 
often  in  those  days  have  I  seen  him  appear 
through  the  swing-doors  under  the  clock,  a  bunch 
of  violets — his  favourite  flower — in  the  button- 
hole of  his  frock-coat,  pass  up  the  floor  and  bow 
to  the  Speaker  before  turning  to  the  right  to 
ascend  the  gangway  to  his  seat.  The  Nationalist 
members  had  on  the  benches  below  the  gangway 
at  that  time  such  neighbours  as  the  extremist  and 
most  uncompromising  Ulster  and  English  Union- 
ists. Looking  down  from  the  Reporters'  Gallery 
I  have  witnessed  many  exciting  incidents  which 
sprang  from  this  propinquity  of  elements  so  an- 
tagonistic, restless  and  passionate.    On  such  oc- 

[163] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

casions  Mr.  Redmond  exercised  a  restraining  in- 
fluence. He  was  all  for  order  and  decorum  in 
the  conduct  of  debate.  Another  of  his  charac- 
teristics was  the  close  attention  which  he  gave  to 
the  proceedings.  While  he  sat  in  his  place  he 
always  paid  the  man  in  possession  the  compli- 
ment of  listening  to  what  he  had  to  say.  Mr. 
Redmond,  in  small  things,  as  well  as  things  vital, 
was  a  great  man." 

I  need  not  supplement  with  the  details  of  the 
political  controversy  in  which  he  applied  them 
this  able  and  enthusiastic  appreciation  of  the  po- 
litical qualities  which  Mr.  Redmond  exhibited 
during  this  period.  During  that  period,  more- 
over, history  was  made,  essentially,  much  less  at 
Westminster  than  in  Ireland. 


[164] 


CHAPTER  VII 

REDMOND  AND  SINN  FEIN 

AT  this  point  it  is  necessary  to  retrace  our 
steps  a  little  and  consider  the  emergence 
in  Ireland  of  an  influence  hostile  to  Mr.  Redmond 
and  the  whole  policy  for  which  he  stood.  It  was 
an  influence  destined  in  the  end  to  wreck  that 
policy  so  far  as  his  own  life-time  was  concerned; 
but  it  was  an  influence  which  was  generally  held 
in  too  little  account  and  was  regarded  by  him- 
self, perhaps,  in  too  contemptuous  a  spirit  until 
the  very  last  years  of  his  life — though,  indeed,  it 
was  circumstances  utterly  beyond  his  control 
which  then  invested  it  with  a  novel,  and  for  him, 
catastrophic  importance.  I  mean  the  influence 
which,  though  the  description,  as  will  appear,  is 
not  strictly  accurate,  may  for  convenience'  sake 
be  comprised  under  the  generic  definition  of  Sinn 
Fein. 

In  a  speech  in  Ireland  in  the  summer  of  1907 
Mr.  Redmond  thus  described  the  Nationalist 
movement  and   its   needs:     "A  Parliamentary 

[166] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

party  representing  Ireland  in  the  British  Parlia- 
ment is  as  necessary,  from  some  points  of  view 
is  more  necessary  to-day  than  at  any  period  since 
the  Union;  and  further  than  that,  I  say  that  the 
conditions  upon  which  such  a  party  can  be  of 
value  and  can  achieve  victories  for  Ireland  re- 
main to-day  absolutely  unchanged. 

"First  of  all,  the  party  must  be  the  mouthpiece 
of  a  united,  organised,  and  determined  people  at 
home.  The  second  condition  without  which  no 
party  in  Parliament  can  be  of  any  value  is  that 
it  must  be  a  united  and  pledge-bound  party.  Fur- 
ther than  this,  the  party,  to  be  useful  to  Ireland, 
must  be  an  independent  party.  It  must  be  inde- 
pendent of  all  political  parties  ....  We 
have  no  alliance  with  the  present  Liberal  Gov- 
ernment. We  would  make  no  alliance  with  them 
except  upon  one  condition,  and  that  would  be  that 
they  would  not  only  determine  to  introduce  a  full 
Home  Rule  Bill  for  Ireland,  but  that  they  would 
make  it  the  first  and  paramount  item  of  their 
policy.  With  reference  further  to  the  party,  if  it 
is  to  be  useful  it  must  be  composed  of  honest,  ca- 
pable men.  In  this  matter  the  party  is  the  result 
of  the  action  of  the  Irish  people  themselves  .  .  . 

"Now,"  concluded  Mr.  Redmond,  "with  such 
a  party  as  I  have  described,  united,  pledge-bound, 
disciplined,  independent  of  all  English  parties, 

[166] 


REDMOND  AND  SINN  FEIN 

composed  of  honest  and  capable  men,  and,  above 
all,  representing  a  determined,  organised,  and 
united  people  at  home — with  such  a  party  it  is 
my  profound  conviction  that  we  can  in  the  fu- 
ture, as  we  have  done  in  the  past,  win  great  am- 
eliorative reforms  for  the  people  of  Ireland;  and 
further  that  we  can,  in  a  comparatively  short 
space  of  time,  win  for  this  country  the  right  of 
full  national  self-government." 

Such  was  Mr.  Redmond's  apologia  for  the  pol- 
icy of  the  Parliamentary  Party ;  and  it  may  be  re- 
peated here  that  in  making  it  he  not  only  ex- 
pounded a  political  theory,  but  expressed  an  in- 
tense personal  conviction.  For  he  was  always 
and  above  all  else  himself  a  "Parliamentarian,"  a 
convinced  constitutionalist.  He  thought  and 
spoke  of  all  political,  social,  and  economic  griev- 
ances in  terms  not  of  revolution,  but  of  reform, 
and  "Parliamentarianism"  was  to  him  the  lan- 
guage of  all  constitutional  progress.  Now  the 
hostile  influence  which  is  conveniently  described 
as  Sinn  Fein  struck  at  the  very  roots  not  only  of 
his  policy,  but  of  his  whole  habit  of  mind.  It  had, 
perhaps,  apart  from  its  purely  Irish  development, 
something  in  common  with  that  contemporary 
European  m.ovement  of  impatience  with,  and  re- 
volt from,  "indirect"  political  action  which  finds 

[167] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

one  of  its  expressions  in  the  theory  of  Syndical- 
ism. 

This  hostile  influence  traversed  the  entire  basis 
of  the  constitutional  movement  as  it  was  stated  in 
the  policy  of  the  Parliamentary  Party.  It  denied 
that  this  Party,  taken  on  its  own  terms,  was  in 
fact  independent  of  English  political  parties,  and 
charged  it  with  a  subservience  to  English  party 
considerations  actively  detrimental  to  the  best  in- 
terests of  Ireland.  It  denied  that  the  Party  sys- 
tem in  fact  produced  "honest,  capable  men,"  and 
charged  it  with  making  the  discipline  of  the 
pledge  binding  the  members  of  the  party  an  in- 
strument of  tyranny  which  at  once  imposed  upon 
the  electorate  members  whose  only  necessary 
qualification  was  complaisance  in  the  leader's 
infallibility  and  stifled  all  independent  political 
thought  in  that  electorate.  But,  over  and  above 
such  criticism  of  detail,  as  it  were,  it  denied  as  a 
whole  the  validity  of  the  Parliamentary  policy 
revived  and  reorganised  by  Parnell  and  con- 
tinued and  developed  by  John  Redmond;  and  it 
proposed  instead  a  new  policy  which,  though  in 
its  essence  revolutionary,  did  not  contemplate  re- 
liance upon  actual  physical  force. 

"The  fact  should  be  borne  in  mind,"  said  the 
Report  of  the  Royal  Commission  on  the  Rebellion 
in  Ireland  in  191 6,  "that  there  is  always  a  section 

[168] 


REDMOND  AND  SINN  FEIN 

of  opinion  in  that  country  bitterly  opposed  to  the 
British  connection,  and  that  in  times  of  excite- 
ment this  section  can  impose  its  sentiments  on 
largely  increased  numbers  of  the  people."  As  Mr. 
Birrell  described  it:  "The  spirit  of  what  to-day 
is  called  Sinn  Fein  is  mainly  composed  of  the  old 
hatred  and  distrust  of  the  British  connection,  al- 
ways noticeable  in  all  classes,  and  in  all  places, 
varying  in  degree,  and  finding  different  ways  of 
expression,  but  always  there  as  the  background 
of  Irish  politics  and  character."  It  was  the  whole 
achievement  of  Mr.  Redmond  that,  by  reducing 
this  spirit  of  irreconcilability  to  the  minimum  and 
inducing  the  mass  of  the  Irish  people  to  seek  by 
peaceful  means  a  constitutional  compromise  with 
Great  Britain  of  the  Irish  national  claim,  he  suc- 
ceeded in  recommending  that  claim  to  the  British 
democracy.  Nevertheless  the  old  spirit  of  ir- 
reconcilability remained,  in  Mr.  Birrell's  words, 
"always  there  as  the  background  of  Irish  poli- 
tics and  character,"  and  capable  of  being  brought 
to  the  surface  again  in  circumstances  conducive 
to  its  emergence. 

Mr.  Redmond  inherited  the  policy  of  constitu- 
tional compromise  from  Parnell.  After  the  fail- 
ure of  the  physical  force  movement  of  the  'sixties 
— the  Fenian  movement — no  alternative  to  Par- 
nell's  policy  offered  itself  to  the  Irish  people.  For 

[169] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

the  short,  sharp  Parliamentary  struggle  predicted 
a  pledge-bound  party  was  formed,  and  the  force 
of  public  opinion  organised  in  support  of  its 
policy.  But  the  Parliamentary  struggle,  in  the 
event,  was  to  be  neither  short  nor  sharp ;  and,  as 
it  proceeded  under  Mr.  Redmond's  leadership 
after  the  Parnellite  split,  the  very  weapon  of  a 
pledge-bound  party,  formed  by  Parnell  to  wrest 
a  measure  of  Irish  autonomy  from  the  Imperial 
Parliament,  tended  inevitably  in  some  degree  to 
cast  Irish  politics  in  an  inflexible  mould  of  uni- 
formity and  to  establish  a  particular  and  rigid 
standard  of  political  orthodoxy.  It  would  have 
required  a  more  than  human — certainly  a  more 
than  Irish — capacity  for  discipline  if  the  re- 
straints of  this  system  in  their  turn  had  not 
tended  to  gall  the  more  ardent  spirits  of  Irish  Na- 
tionalism. 

But  this  impatience  with  the  restraints  of  the 
system — of  "machine"  politics,  as  its  critics  de- 
scribe them — were  kept  in  the  main  within 
bounds.  There  were  no  formal  secessions  from 
the  party  beyond  that  of  Mr.  William  O'Brien, 
Mr.  T.  M.  Healy,  and  their  group  of  "All-for- 
Irelanders,"  and  this  secession  was  more  a  mat- 
ter of  personalities  than  of  fundamental  princi- 
ples. The  distinctive  tendency  expressed  itself 
rather  in  criticism  of  his  tactical  methods  than  in 
[170] 


REDMOND  AND  SINN  FEIN 

open  revolt  from  Mr.  Redmond's  policy  as  a 
whole.  The  general  strength  of  his  position  was 
buttressed  principally  by  two  factors — one,  the 
lively  recollection  of  the  impotence  to  which  the 
divisions  at  the  time  of  the  Parnellite  split  had 
long  reduced  the  Nationalist  movement;  the 
other,  the  absence  of  any  alternative  to  his  policy 
except  the  broken  and  discredited  weapon  of 
physical  force. 

Now,  from  the  point  of  view  of  political  strat- 
egy, the  appeal  of  Sinn  Fein  consisted  precisely  in 
the  fact  that  it  did  propose  a  policy  which  was 
neither  a  policy  of  constitutional  action  nor  a 
policy  of  physical  force.  The  policy  of  Sinn  Fein 
was  formulated  in  1904  by  Mr.  Arthur  Griffith 
in  his  book  "The  Resurrection  of  Hungary,"  in 
the  forefront  of  which  were  printed  the  words  of 
Sydney  Smith:  "It  is  impossible  to  think  of  the 
affairs  of  Ireland  without  being  forcibly  struck 
with  the  parallel  of  Hungary."  In  the  preface 
to  this  book  Mr.  Griffith  made  it  clear  that  he  was 
setting  out  to  show  that  the  alternative  to  acqui- 
escence in  British  Government  was  not  necessar- 
ily armed  resistance.  His  object,  as  he  stated  it, 
was  "to  point  out  to  his  compatriots  that  the  alter- 
native of  armed  resistance  to  the  foreign  Govern- 
ment of  Ireland  is  not  necessarily  acquiescence  in 
usurpation,  tyranny,  and  fraud." 

[171] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

"A  century  ago  in  Hungary/'  wrote  Mr.  Grif- 
fith, "a  poet  startled  his  countrymen  by  shouting 
in  their  ears,  'Turn  your  eyes  from  Vienna  or 
you  perish.'  The  voice  of  Josef  Karman  dis- 
turbed the  nation,  but  the  nation  did  not  appre- 
hend. Vienna  remained  its  political  centre  until 
fifty  years  later.  The  convincing  tongue  of 
Louis  Kossuth  cried  up  and  down  the  land,  'Only 
on  the  soil  of  a  nation  can  a  nation's  salvation  be 
worked  out.'  Through  a  generation  of  strife 
and  sorrow,  the  people  of  Hungary  held  by  Kos- 
suth's dictum  and  triumphed  gloriously.  The  de- 
spised, oppressed,  and  forgotten  province  of  Aus- 
tria is  to-day  the  free,  prosperous,  and  renowned 
Kingdom  of  Hungary.  .  .  .  Hungary  is  a  na- 
tion. She  has  become  so  because  she  turned  her 
back  on  Vienna.  Sixty  years  ago  Hungary  real- 
ised that  the  political  centre  of  the  nation  must 
be  within  the  nation.  When  Ireland  realises  this 
obvious  truth  and  turns  her  back  on  London,  the 
parallel  may  be  completed.  It  failed  only  when 
two  generations  back  Hungary  took  the  road  of 
principle,  and  Ireland  the  path  of  compromise  and 
expediency." 

In  a  hundred  pages  Mr.  Griffith  compressed  a 
vivid  sketch  of  the  history  of  the  Hungarian  con- 
stitutional struggle  against  Austria  from  1849 
to  1867  when,  after  Sadowa,  the  emancipation  of 

[172] 


REDMOND  AND  SINN  FEIN 

Hungary  was  achieved  and  the  Emperor  Francis 
Joseph  was  crowned  King  at  Pesth.  "Hungary 
won  her  independence,"  he  urged,  "by  refusing  to 
send  members  to  the  Imperial  Parliament  at  Vi- 
enna or  to  admit  any  right  in  that  Parliament  to 
legislate  for  her.  As  the  ancient  Hungarian  con- 
stitution was  revived,  so  could  Irish  independence 
again  be  won,  as  acknowledged  in  the  English 
Renunciation  Act  of  1782.  Austria  illegally  sus- 
pended that  Constitution  and  declared  it  invalid. 
Deak  stood  for  eighteen  years  insisting  that  it 
was  not  abolished,  since  it  could  not  be  abolished 
save  with  the  consent  of  the  whole  people  of  Hun- 
gary. He  refused  all  compromise  and  ignored 
the  laws  passed  for  Hungary  in  defiance  of  the 
Constitution."  It  was  inevitable,  Mr.  Griffith  in- 
sisted, that  such  an  attitude  must  baffle  Austria 
or  any  other  nation  towards  which  it  was  as- 
sumed, and  leave  her  no  alternative  to  uncondi- 
tional surrender  except  government  by  the  sword. 
Protesting  against  the  policy  of  Mr.  Redmond 
and  the  Parliamentary  Party,  Mr.  Griffith  quoted 
the  adverse  criticism  which  Beust,  who  arranged 
the  Aiigsleich  with  Hungary,  passed  on  Glad- 
stone's Home  Rule  Bill  of  1886.  Beust,  in  press- 
ing the  analogy  between  the  Irish  and  Hungarian 
questions,  admitted  that  Austria  would  never 
have  conceded  Hungary's  demand  had  Hungary 

[173] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

not  made  it  impossible  for  her  to  refuse  it  by  the 
policy  she  adopted  and  persisted  in  for  eighteen 
years.  England  similarly  would  never  concede 
Ireland's  demands  unless  Ireland  made  it  impos- 
sible for  her  not  to  concede  them.  Mr.  Griffith's 
policy  was  to  be  a  policy  of  passive  resistance. 
The  attendance  of  Irish  members  at  Westminster 
should  cease,  since  their  attendance  recognised 
the  competency  of  the  British  Parliament  to  make 
laws  to  suit  Ireland.  A  National  Assembly 
should  be  formed  in  Ireland  from  the  Irish  repre- 
sentatives. Ireland  should  set  up  a  consular 
agency  of  her  own,  as  Hungary  did,  to  secure  a 
profitable  market  for  Irish  goods  abroad.  "The 
British  Civil  Courts"  in  Ireland  should  find  their 
"supersession  by  the  institution  of  Voluntary  Ar- 
bitration Courts"  such  as  the  Young  Irelanders 
projected  and  the  Hungarians  established.  The 
Irish  abroad,  especially  in  America,  would  form 
a  valuable  auxiliary  both  by  rendering  aid  to 
Irish  industrial  enterprises  and  thwarting  the  de- 
signs of  British  foreign  policy,  as  the  Hungarian 
exiles  did  from  1849  to  1867.  "It  would  of  course 
be  a  principal  duty  to  keep  Irishmen  out  of  the 
ranks  of  the  British  armed  forces.  In  Hungary 
the  County  Councils  saw  so  eflfectively  to  this  that 
the  Austrian  army  was  rendered  ineffective,  and 

[174] 


REDMOND  AND  SINN  FEIN 

went  to  pieces  in  seven  days  before  the  Prus- 
sians." 

In  conclusion  Mr.  Griffith  wrote:  "We  have 
merely  roughly  indicated  how  the  policy  which 
made  Hungary  what  it  is  to-day  may  be  applied 
to  Ireland.  There  is  no  doubt  of  the  readiness  of 
the  people  to  follow.  The  people  of  Ireland  are 
not  less  patriotic  and  not  less  intelligent  than  the 
people  of  Hungary.  Three-fourths  of  their  mis- 
fortunes are  traceable  to  their  pusillanimous,  in- 
competent and  sometimes  corrupt  leaders.  An 
Irish  Deak  would  have  found  in  Ireland  a  sup- 
port as  loyal  and  as  strong  as  Deak  found  in 
Hungary.  But  an  Irish  Deak  never  appeared, 
and  shallow  rhetoricians  imposed  themselves  on 
the  people  in  his  stead."  And  again:  "One 
strong,  honest  man  in  Ireland  in  1867,  after  the 
failure  of  the  Fenian  insurrection,  apprehending 
the  significance  of  the  coronation  of  Francis  Jo- 
seph at  Pesth,  could  have  rallied  and  led  the  coun- 
try to  victory.  Ireland  did  not  produce  him.  Ire- 
land produced  Isaac  Butt,  the  apostle  of  compro- 
mise, who,  by  himself  and  his  successors,  has  led 
the  country  to  the  brink  of  destruction." 

"The  Resurrection  of  Hungary,"  the  book 
which  was  the  genesis  of  Sinn  Fein,  had  an  enor- 
mous circulation,  and  the  preface  to  the  second 
edition  claimed  that  "no  book  published  in  Ire- 

[175] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

land  within  living  memory  had  been  so  widely 
read."  In  the  winter  of  1905,  the  year  following 
its  publication,  the  first  Sinn  Fein  convention  was 
held  in  Dublin.  For  a  time  the  new  movement 
seemed  to  threaten  Mr.  Redmond's  ascendency. 
It  was  in  1907  that  its  rise  compelled  him  to  make 
the  apologia  for  the  policy  of  the  Parliamentary 
Party  which  was  quoted  at  the  beginning  of  this 
chapter.  But  after  the  first  novelty  of  its  appeal 
had  worn  off  the  movement  languished,  and  its 
single  experiment  in  contesting  a  by-election 
against  the  candidate  of  the  Parliamentary  Party 
certainly  did  not  encourage  Mr.  Griffith's  hopes 
of  "the  readiness  of  the  Irish  people  to  follow." 
Between  1907  and  19 12  some  of  the  earlier  ad- 
herents of  Sinn  Fein,  despairing  of  its  practical 
possibilities)  drifted  towards  the  neo-Fenianism 
nurtured  furtively  and  ineffectively  by  the  avow- 
edly revolutionary  Irish  Republican  Brother- 
hood; while  more  returned  to  their  belief  in  the 
policy  of  Mr.  Redmond  and  the  Parliamentary 
Party. 

Nevertheless,  though  by  191 2  Sinn  Fein  was  a 
small  society,  making  its  limited  appeal  to  a  com- 
pany of  writers  and  scholars,  and  to  some  extent 
to  the  smaller  bourgeoisie  of  the  cities,  having 
lost  what  influence  it  once  possessed  as  an  active 
agent  in  Irish  political  life,  its  propaganda  had 

[176] 


REDMOND  AND  SINN  FEIN 

still  aroused  a  critical  spirit  and  coloured  the 
whole  background  of  Irish  political  thought  to  the  ^ 
disadvantage  of  Mr.  Redmond's  policy.  Mr.  Ar- 
thur Griffith  thus  described  the  Home  Rule  Bill 
of  1912:  "The  definition  of  the  third  Home  Rule 
Bill  as  a  charter  of  Irish  liberty  is  subject  to  the 
following  corrections : — The  authority  of  the  pro- 
posed Parliament  does  not  extend  to  the  armed 
men  or  to  the  tax-gatherer.  It  is  checked  by  the 
tidal  waters  and  bounded  by  the  British  Treas- 
ury. It  cannot  alter  the  settled  purposes  of  the 
Cabinet  in  London.  It  may  make  laws,  but  it 
cannot  command  the  power  to  enforce  them.  It 
may  fill  its  purse,  but  it  cannot  have  its  purse  in 
its  keeping.  If  this  be  liberty, .the  lexicographers 
have  deceived  us  .  .  .  The  measure  is  no  ar- 
rangement between  nations.  It  recognises  no 
Irish  nation.  It  might  equally  apply  to  the  latest 
British  settlement  in  a  South  Sea  island.  It  satis- 
fies no  claim  of  the  Irish  nation  whose  roots  are 
in  Tara,  or  the  Irish  Nationalism  which  Moly- 
neux  first  made  articulate."  When  Mr.  Griffith 
wrote  this  mordant  criticism  of  the  Home  Rule 
Bill  of  which  Mr.  Redmond  had  secured  the  in- 
troduction, there  may  have  been  few  Irishmen 
who  called  themselves  Sinn  Feiners,  but  there 
were  many  who  were  disposed  to  agree  with  his 

[177] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

contempt  for  the  measure  which  Mr.  Redmond 
claimed  as  the  charter  of  Irish  liberties. 

But  it  was  in  a  more  subtle  fashion  than  found 
expression  in  the  sphere  of  practical  politics  and 
to  an  extent  quite  incapable  of  measurement  in 
terms  of  its  direct  and  immediate  political  reac- 
tions, that  the  influence  comprised  under  the  gen- 
eric heading  of  Sinn  Fein  tended  to  undermine  in 
an  increasing  degree  the  general  ascendency  of 
Mr.  Redmond  and  his  policy  in  the  public  life  of 
Ireland.  The  rigid  conditions  of  party  disci- 
pline under  which  his  policy  was  necessarily 
formed  produced  inevitably  a  certain  vacuum  of 
living  political  thought  in  Ireland ;  and  human  na- 
ture, like  Nature  herself,  abhors  a  vacuum.  The 
political  energies  of  Ireland  were  concentrated 
at  Westminster,  and  public  life  in  Ireland  suf- 
fered in  consequence  a  certain  stagnation.  As, 
upon  the  one  hand,  Irish  politics  pursued  their 
stereotyped  course,  and  as,  upon  the  other  hand, 
Irish  idealism  was  slowly  and  gradually  in  proc- 
ess of  revitalisation  by  those  agencies  which  are 
known  comprehensively  as  the  Irish  Revival, 
much  of  the  youth  of  Ireland  grew  indifferent  to 
politics,  and  sought  an  outlet  for  its  energies  in 
other  directions. 

Apart  altogether  from  its  political  aims  and 
methods,  the  original  objects  of  Sinn  Fein  had  in 

[178] 


REDMOND  AND  SINN  FEIN 

them  much  that  was  calculated  to  attract  the  more 
thoughtful  type  of  Irishman:  in  general  the  idea 
that  Ireland  should  cultivate  her  own  resources 
spiritual  and  material,  and  look  for  salvation 
from  within,  rather  than  depend  upon  Parliamen- 
tary intrigue  and  the  chances  and  changes  of 
English  party  life.  While  intellectually  the  Home 
Rule  policy  was  to  a  large  extent  sterile,  intel- 
lectually Sinn  Fein  was  fertile ;  and,  having  much 
in  common  with  them,  it  gave  an  impetus  to  all 
those  intellectual  movements  which,  while  none  of 
them  was  inimical  to  the  Home  Rule  policy  of 
Mr.  Redmond,  competed  with  it  with  success  in 
offering  a  romantic  outlet  which  that  policy  did 
not  offer. 

By  a  paradox  easily  Intelligible,  it  was  Mr. 
Redmond's  very  success  in  gaining  what  he 
rightly  described  as  "great  ameliorative  reforms" 
for  the  people  of  Ireland  which  tended  to  under- 
mine the  popularity  of  the  constitutional  move- 
ment as  he  directed  it.  The  period  of  his  leader- 
ship of  the  Parliamentary  Party  was  a  period  of 
emancipation  for  Ireland.  It  was  the  period  of 
the  conclusion  of  the  land  war  and  the  final  re- 
covery of  the  land  by  the  people  in  the  successive 
Land  Purchase  Acts;  of  the  measures  for  the 
betterment  of  social  conditions  such  as  the  La- 
bourers* Acts  and  the  establishment  of  the  De- 

[179] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

partment  of  Agriculture  and  Technical  Instruc- 
tion and  the  Congested  Districts  Board;  of  the 
grant  of  autonomy  in  local  affairs  by  the  passing 
of  the  Irish  Local  Government  Act;  of  the  im- 
provement in  educational  facilities  and  the  re- 
moval of  long-standing  and  serious  Roman  Cath- 
olic educational  difficulties  in  the  establishment  of 
the  National  University  of  Ireland. 

All  this  material  advance  was  accompanied  by 
^  a  profound  stirring  of  national  consciousness 
which  found  a  manifold  expression.  The  na- 
tional spirit,  which  had  been  for  generations  re- 
fused expression,  flowered,  with  its  partial  eman- 
cipation in  the  material  sphere,  into  an  intense 
spiritual  life.  The  generation  covered  by  the 
active  political  life  of  Mr.  Redmond  was  the  gen- 
eration or  the  reincarnation  of  potent  antique 
ideals  and  of  equally  potent  modern  ideals  deriv- 
ing from  them:  of  Standish  O'Grady  and  the 
History  of  Ireland;  Heroic  Period,  the  recapture 
of  the  inspiration  of  Ireland's  heroic  age,  the  epic 
emotion  of  the  past;  of  the  modern  Irish  literary 
revival  of  which,  for  all  the  diversity  of  form  and 
method  between  himself  and  his  offspring,  Stan- 
dish  O'Grady  was  the  authentic  father;  of  the 
Fays,  and  the  dramatic  movement,  the  Irish  Na- 
tional Theatre  and  the  folk-drama  of  Synge  and 
Colum  and  their  followers ;  of  Dr.  Douglas  Hyde 

[180] 


AT   THK    CI.ONOOWKS   CK.N  TKNARY,    1914 

JOHN    RKDMUND    WITH    >l  IH    HHOTIIKR    Wn.MAM    (oN    THE    LKKt)    AND 

HIS  SON,    Wn.MAM    ARCHKR    KKUMONU 


REDMOND  AND  SINN  FEIN 

and  the  Gaelic  League  and  the  Language  move- 
ment; of  "AE"  and  Sir  Horace  Plunkett  and  the 
co-operative  movement  which  sought  to  re-create 
the  old  communal  civilisation;  of  the  Irish  indus- 
trial revival. 

Towards  all,  or  nearly  all,  these  movements 
Mr.  Redmond  adopted  a  sympathetic  attitude. 
Only  to  one  of  them — the  co-operative  movement 
— did  he  take  up,  largely  under  the  influence  of 
Mr.  Dillon,  a  hostile  attitude,  on  the  ground  that 
it  was,  or  might  be,  a  "red-herring"  drawn  across 
the  trail  of  Home  Rule.  Towards  what  has  come 
to  be  called  comprehensively  the  "Irish-Ireland" 
movement  he  was  entirely  friendly,  but  always 
within  certain  limits  and  with  certain  reserves. 
He  was,  within  those  limits  and  with  those  re- 
serves, a  Gaelic  League  supporter.  His  own  chil- 
dren were  taught  Irish.  He  was  in  full  agree- 
ment with  the  revival  of  Irish  as  a  spoken  lan- 
guage: it  was  his  efforts  which  were  largely  re- 
sponsible for  getting  it  placed  on  a  level  with  the 
classics  in  the  Intermediate  examinations.  He 
was  a  keen  admirer  of  Irish  art  and  a  stalwart 
upholder  of  the  distinctive  character  of  Irish 
genius. 

But  in  all  this  he  lacked  that  touch  of  fanati- 
cism which  distinguished  the  more  ardent  be- 
lievers in  the  ideal  of  "Irish-Ireland."    If  he  ap- 

[181] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

posed  "anglicising"  influences  in  Ireland,  it  was 
only  because  he  believed  in  the  objective  value 
of  racial  differences;  and  he  was  not  prepared 
to  go  to  the  extreme  of  the  *'Irish-Irelander" 
who  would  expel  every  English  influence  and 
espouse  every  Irish  influence  solely  because 
the  one  was  English  and  the  other  was  Irish.  If 
he  believed  in  Irish  literature,  he  was  not  of  that 
movement  which  would  seek  to  dismiss  the  tongue 
of  Swift  and  Burke;  there  were  few  Irishmen  of 
his  time  who  possessed  a  greater  devotion  to,  and 
a  greater  knowledge  of,  the  genius  of  Shake- 
speare. There  was  to  him,  perhaps,  a  trace  of 
smugness  and  self-satisfaction,  or  of  hysteria,  in 
Sinn  Fein  on  its  intellectual  side  and  kindred 
Gaelic  societies.  Mr.  Redmond's  mind  was  es- 
sentially realistic,  not  retrospective.  He  was  a 
man  of  many  intellectual  interests,  but  not  of 
those  thinkers  who  "make  thought  their  aim." 
A  practical  man,  he  had  little  use  for  thought  in 
public  affairs  which  was  not  the  channel  to  ac- 
tion ;  and  he  was  unable  to  regard  the  cultivation 
of  Irish  genius  as  any  substitute  for,  though  it 
might  be  the  complement  of,  his  own  policy  of 
constitutional  action. 

In  the  intense  emotion  of  national  expression 
which  constituted  the  Irish  Revival,  there  was, 
perhaps,  inevitably,  much  of  active  resentment, 

[182] 


REDMOND  AND  SINN  FEIN 

in  some  of  its  manifestations,  of  any  intrusion  of 
internationalism.  The  Gaelic  League,  for  exam- 
ple, tended  increasingly  to  become  an  exclusive 
movement — a  movement  which,  jealously  safe- 
guarding that  sense  of  nationality  which  it  was 
designed  to  foster,  suspicious  of  renewed  as- 
saults upon  it,  in  a  passion  of  nationalism  shut 
out  rigorously  any  external  influence  which  might 
weaken  the  impact  of  its  creed  upon  the  awaken- 
ing mind  of  the  Irish  people.  It  was  a  phase,  com- 
mon to  the  development  of  all  intellectual  na- 
tionalist movements,  which  never  tend  to  turn  to 
jingoism  unless  they  find  their  proper  comple- 
ment in  internationalism,  which  would  in  normal 
circumstances  probably  soon  have  been  outgrown. 
But  Mr.  Redmond  was  naturally  unsympathetic 
to  it,  and  especially  to  the  extreme  anti-English 
bitterness  which  accompanied  it. 

In  the  good,  as  distinguished  from  the  bad, 
sense,  Mr.  Redmond  was  an  Imperialist.  He  be- 
lieved in  the  British  Empire,  with  all  its  faults,  ^ 
as  an  instrument  of  civilisation  and  progress 
whose  existence  was  not  incompatible  with  na- 
tional freedom.  He  believed  that  within  the  lim- 
its of  the  Empire  Ireland's  national  aspirations 
could  be  fully  satisfied.  He  was  no  less  proud  of 
the  share  which  Irish  swords  had  taken  in  build- 
ing the  Empire  than  of  the  contribution  which 

[183] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

Irish  pens  had  made  to  the  commonwealth  of 
English  literature.  Mr.  Redmond,  indeed,  was 
the  first  leader  of  Irish  Nationalism  who  real- 
ised from  personal  observation  the  Imperial  as- 
pect of  the  Irish  question.  His  visits  to  the  self- 
governing  Dominions  had  satisfied  him  that,  if 
the  Irish  question  had  become  an  Imperial  ques- 
tion from  the  English  point  of  view,  the  fact  that 
it  had  become  so  from  the  Irish  point  of  view 
also  raised  an  entirely  new  set  of  considerations 
from  those  envisaged  by  the  Sinn  Feiner  and  the 
"Irish-Irelander."  He  could  not  admit  the  valid- 
ity of  the  full  implications  of  a  political  theory, 
based  upon  an  emotional  nationalism  unre- 
strained by  political  facts,  which,  pressed  to  its 
logical  conclusion,  must  mean  not  only  the  com- 
plete separation  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  but 
also  the  disruption  of  the  Empire  in  which  the 
Irish  element  is  everywhere  a  factor  with  which 
to  reckon. 

Mr.  W.  T.  Stead  has  given  in  his  character 
sketch  of  Mr.  Redmond  an  impression  by  Mr.  W. 
M.  Crook — who  made  Mr.  Redmond's  acquain- 
tance in  Dublin  when  they  were  both  law  stu- 
dents— which  may  appropriately  be  quoted  here. 
"When  I  first  met  Mr.  Redmond,"  he  said,  "I 
was  more  or  less  of  a  Separatist.  He  made  me 
an  Imperialist.    I  do  not  use  the  word  to  desig- 

[184] 


REDMOND  AND  SINN  FEIN 

nate  an  admirer  of  the  gorgeous  orientalism  of 
Benjamin  Disraeli,  nor  yet  a  follower  of  the  nar- 
rowly insular  policy  of  an  uneducated  Birming- 
ham tradesman.  John  Redmond  knew  the  Em- 
pire. His  wife  was  an  Australian,  and  even  when 
I  first  met  him  he  had  been  round  the  world.  The 
great  free  communities,  Canada,  Australia,  New 
Zealand,  and  even  the  United  States,  were  to  him 
in  large  part  Irish  estates.  Irish  blood  and  Irish 
brains  had  helped  them  to  freedom  and  to  pros- 
perity. It  was  a  new  point  of  view  to  us.  I  do 
not  speak  with  authority,  but  I  do  say  with  some 
confidence  that  never,  while  John  Redmond  is 
leader,  will  the  Irish  Party  consent  to  be  deprived 
of  their  rightful  share  in  the  government  of  their 
Empire."  This  "Imperialism"  of  Mr.  Redmond, 
combined  with  that  antipathy  to  the  extreme  of 
the  "Irish-Ireland"  philosophy  which  derives 
from  what  his  nephew,  Mr.  Redmond-Howard, 
has  called  "a  certain  'Englishness'  about  him 
which  appeals  to  the  more  sober-minded,"  was 
precisely  that  quality  in  him  which  Sinn  Fein  held 
anathema. 

To  what  extent  Mr.  Redmond's  position  was 
being  undermined  by  Sinn  Fein  propaganda  be- 
fore the  war  it  is  difficult  to  say,  and  perhaps 
scarcely  relevant  to  consider;  for  the  war  intro- 

[186] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

duced  into  the  Irish  situation  influences  which 
completely  transformed  the  situation.  It  may  be 
said,  however,  that  upon  the  definitely  political 
side,  superficially  at  least,  it  appeared  to  do  his 
policy  little  material  damage.  It  did  assist  pow- 
erfully in  arousing  a  critical  spirit,  but  it  did  not 
offer  any  acceptable  alternative  to  the  policy  of 
the  Parliamentary  Party.  Mr.  Redmond's  posi- 
tion in  the  country  remained  sufficiently  secure, 
his  following  sufficiently  numerous  and  upon  the 
whole  sufficiently  disciplined,  to  enable  him  to  de- 
vote his  whole  energies  to  the  campaign  for  Home 
Rule  without  fear  that  the  basis  of  his  authority 
in  Ireland  would  be  cut  from  beneath  him;  and 
there  can  be  little  doubt  that,  had  he  succeeded 
in  carrying  that  campaign  to  full  success,  and 
secured  the  bringing  into  operation  of  the  Home 
Rule  Bill,  his  achievement  would  have  silenced 
almost  all  criticism  of  the  imperfections  of  that 
measure  and  enabled  him  to  enter  upon  his  career 
as  Prime  Minister  of  a  self-governing  Ireland  in 
the  assured  enjoyment  of  commanding  popularity 
and  prestige. 

In  default  of  that  success  the  effect  of  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Sinn  Fein  and  kindred  movements 
upon  Mr.  Redmond's  position  was  briefly  this — 
that  he  was  conducting  a  constitutional  pohcy 

[186] 


REDMOND  AND  SINN  FEIN 

in  an  atmosphere  increasingly  revolutionary.  I 
use  the  word  in  its  broadest  sense,  not  in  its  nar- 
rower political  sense.  It  is  a  facile  view  which 
would  attribute  to  the  ''Irish  Revival"  movements 
any  direct  responsibility  for  the  rising  of  1916. 
But  there  may  clearly  be  traced  to  them,  or  rather 
to  the  mood  from  which  they  sprung,  an  indirect 
and  perfectly  innocent  responsibility  for  it.  It 
implied  the  existence  and  growth  of  a  revolution- 
ary sentiment  colouring  all  the  background  of  the 
political  material  through  which  Mr.  Redmond 
sought  by  constitutional  action  to  achieve  his  end. 
Mr.  Redmond  did  not  possess  the  revolutionary 
temperament.  For  that  reason,  and  also  because 
he  was  always  concerned  rather  with  the  concrete 
facts  of  politics  than  with  those  abstractions 
which  supply  the  deeper  motive  forces  of  polit- 
ical action,  perhaps,  he  underestimated  the  poten- 
tialities of  this  revolutionary  sentiment.  "What 
is  called  the  Sinn  Fein  movement,"  he  said  as  late 
as  the  summer  of  1915,  "is  simply  the  temporary 
cohesion  of  isolated  cranks  in  various  parts  of  the 
country,  and  it  would  be  impossible  to  say  exactly 
what  their  principles  are,  or  what  their  object  is. 
In  fact,  they  have  no  policy  and  no  leader,  and  do 
not  amount  to  a  row  of  pins  as  far  as  the  future 
of  Ireland  is  concerned."    As  an  estimate  of  the 

[187] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

superficies  of  politics  and  in  its  application  to 
Sinn  Fein,  strictly  regarded,  this  judgment  was 
sound.  But  as  an  estimate  of  deeper  political 
forces  and  of  the  influence  of  the  revolutionary 
sentiment  in  general  it  was  profoundly  mistaken. 


[188] 


CHAPTER-  VIII 


REDMOND   AND   ULSTER 


AFTER  this  necessary  and  very  relevant  di- 
gression we  may  resume  the  story  of  Mr. 
Redmond's  career  at  the  point  where  that  story 
was  broken  off.  In  an  earlier  chapter  it  was  re- 
marked that  it  would  be  tedious,  and  indeed  un- 
necessary, to  follow  in  detail  his  past  in  the  par- 
liamentary struggle  over  the  Home  Rule  Bill  dur- 
ing the  year  following  its  introduction — 19 13 — 
when,  under  the  terms  of  the  Parliament  Act,  it 
had  to  be  repassed  by  the  House  of  Commons 
without  alteration  and  again  be  submitted  to  the 
House  of  Lords.  Upon  the  rejection  of  the  Bill 
by  the  Lords  in  April,  19 13,  a  great  protest  meet- 
ing was  held  in  the  Dublin  Mansion  House,  and 
Mr.  Redmond  then  asserted  that,  in  spite  of  the 
Lords,  Home  Rule  would  be  the  law  in  fourteen 
months.  In  the  same  year  he  opened  the  new 
bridge  across  the  Suir  at  Waterford,  and  so  san- 
guine was  he  then  of  the  success  of  the  Home 
Rule  cause  that  he  declared:    "I  will  not  make 

[189] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

any  prophecy,  but  perhaps  the  next  time  I  am 
amongst  you  it  will  be  to  tell  you  that  we  have 
not  merely  won  the  ramparts,  but  that  we  have 
planted  the  flag  in  the  citadel."  During  this  year 
the  organisation  of  armed  opposition  in  Unionist 
Ulster  proceeded  apace.  Simultaneously  the  Ul- 
ster Unionist  leader  conducted  a  platform  cam- 
paign against  Home  Rule  in  England  and  Scot- 
land. Sir  Edward  Carson,  the  principal  speaker 
at  these  meetings,  was  followed  indefatigably  in 
every  town  he  visited  by  Mr.  Redmond,  who  ad- 
dressed a  rival  series  of  meetings. 

The  development  of  the  Parliamentary  situa- 
tion towards  the  close  of  19 13  requires  a  some- 
what closer  study.  In  the  coming  session  the 
Home  Rule  Bill  had  to  be  submitted  for  the  third 
and  last  time  to  the  House  of  Lords,  and  this 
time,  despite  their  rejection,  must  become  law. 
During  the  winter  of  1913-14,  however,  there 
were  to  be  observed  certain  signs  of  weakening 
in  certain  Liberal  quarters  on  the  question  of  Ul- 
ster. A  speech  by  Mr.  Winston  Churchill  at 
Dundee,  and  a  letter  to  the  Press  from  Lord 
Loreburn,  coupled  with  the  changing  attitude  of 
some  of  the  leading  Liberal  newspapers  indicat- 
ed that  a  movement  for  compromise  on  the  Ulster 
question  was  afoot. 

When  the  session  of  1914  opened  it  became 
[190] 


REDMOND  AND  ULSTER 

known  that  at  least  two  powerful  members  of  the 
Cabinet  were  of  the  opinion  that  Ulster  could  not 
be  coerced,  and  it  appeared  probable  that,  unless 
some  concession  were  made  to  the  Ulster  Cove- 
nanters, these  Ministers  would  resign  from  the 
Cabinet  and  thereby  destroy  it.  This  develop- 
ment created  perhaps  the  most  serious  difficulty 
with  which  Mr.  Redmond  had  yet  been  confront- 
ed. It  was  certain  that  a  policy  of  concessions  to 
the  Ulstermen  would  be  highly  unpopular  in  Ire- 
land. On  the  other  hand,  the  alternative — the 
break-up  of  the  Cabinet — involved  the  wreck  of 
all  the  work  of  the  previous  four  years  and  the 
indefinite  postponement  of  the  victory  of  the 
Home  Rule  cause  on  the  very  eve  of  its  realisa- 
tion ;  for  a  dissolution  meant  that  the  Home  Rule 
Bill  would  cease  to  come  under  the  benefit  of  the 
Parliament  Act,  and  a  General  Election,  with  the 
democratic  forces  disorganised,  seemed  to  offer 
a  very  uncertain  prospect  of  recovering  the  lost 
ground  within  a  reasonable  time. 

In  this  dilemma  Mr.  Redmond  finally  decided 
to  accept  the  policy  of  concession,  within  certain 
severe  limits  and  upon  certain  definite  conditions. 
The  proposal  of  the  Government,  to  be  embodied! 
in  an  Amending  Bill,  was  that  each  Ulster  county 
should  have  the  option  of  voting  itself  out  of  the 
operation  of  the  Home  Rule  Bill  for  a  period  of 

[191] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

three  years  (this  period  was  finally  extended  to 
six  years)  at  the  end  of  which  time  they  would  all 
automatically  come  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
Irish  Parliament.  Before  making  his  decision, 
Mr.  Redmond  commissioned  Mr.  Devlin  and 
others  of  his  colleagxies  to  go  to  Ulster  and  learn 
on  the  spot  the  views  of  the  Ulster  Bishops  and 
of  lay  Ulster  Nationalists  upon  the  proposal.  On 
their  return  they  reported  to  him  that  the  Na- 
tionalists of  Ulster,  clerical  and  lay,  were  willing 
to  acquiesce  in  the  concessions  being  offered. 

Thereupon,  Mr.  Redmond,  on  the  introduction 
of  the  Government's  Amending  Bill,  declared 
that  he  and  his  colleagues,  while  protesting 
against  the  proposal,  which  he  described  as  "the 
extremest  limit  of  concession,"  would  be  prepared 
to  accept  the  Bill,  upon  the  strict  condition  that  it 
was  accepted  by  the  Unionists  as  a  final  settle- 
ment of  the  controversy:  otherwise,  he  made  it 
clear,  his  party  would  reserve  the  right  to  oppose 
the  Bill  in  its  later  stages.  The  Bill,  in  fact,  was 
not  so  accepted  by  the  Ulster  party,  and  the  vol- 
unteers in  Ulster  continued  to  arm  and  drill.  The 
Government  nevertheless  proposed  to  proceed 
with  both  the  Home  Rule  Bill  and  the  Amending 
Bill,  despite  the  fact  that  the  latter  satisfied  nei- 
ther party  in  Ireland. 

At  this  point,  however,  the  centre  of  gravity 
[192] 


REDMOND  AND  ULSTER 

shifted  suddenly  from  Westminster  to  Ireland. 
On  March  24th,  19 14,  the  Army  Council  ad- 
dressed a  letter  to  Sir  A.  Paget,  the  General  Offi- 
cer Commanding-in-chief  the  Forces  in  Ireland, 
ordering  him  to  take  measures  which,  on  the  face 
of  them,  appeared  to  be  dictated  merely  by  a  de- 
sire to  protect  the  military  stores  collected  in  cer- 
tain Army  mobilisation  centres  in  Ulster  lest  the 
Volunteers  should  be  tempted  to  appropriate 
them.  Their  purpose  was  apparently  defensive, 
not  offensive.  The  Covenanters  and  their  sympa- 
thisers, however,  leapt  to  the  conclusion  that  they 
portended  the  coercion  of  Ulster.  "The  forces 
of  the  Crown,"  Sir  Edward  Carson  had  stated 
the  previous  year  according  to  his  personal 
knowledge,  "are  already  dividing  into  hostile 
camps."  The  truth  of  his  statement  was  quickly 
proved.  On  March  20th  General  Paget,  who  had 
in  the  meantime  set  in  motion  the  measures  or- 
dered in  the  Army  Council's  letter  of  March  14th, 
wired  to  the  War  Office  reporting  that  the  officer 
commanding  the  5th  Lancers  (stationed  in  Dub- 
lin) stated  that  almost  all  the  officers  of  that  regi- 
ment were  resigning  their  commissions,  and  that 
he  feared  the  same  conditions  existed  in  the  loth 
Lancers  and  that  the  men  would  refuse  to  move. 
He  regretted  to  report  also  that  "Brigadier-Gen- 
eral Gough  and  fifty-seven  officers  3rd  Cavalry 

[193} 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

Brigade  (stationed  at  the  Curragh)  prefer  to  ac- 
cept dismissal  if  ordered  North."  General  Gough 
and  his  officers  at  the  Curragh,  it  appeared,  had 
been  in  telephonic  communication  with  the  Lan- 
cers' officers  in  Dublin,  and  had  concerted  this  re- 
fusal to  obey  the  orders  to  move  to  Ulster  with 
their  units. 

The  affair,  which  came  to  be  known  as  the 
"Curragh  Mutiny,"  precipitated  a  new  "crisis" 
momentarily  transcending  the  Home  Rule  issue 
itself.  General  Gough  was  summoned  to  Lon- 
don, and  there  obtained  from  some  members  of 
the  Army  Council  a  signed  guarantee  that  he  and 
his  brother  officers  should  in  no  circumstance  be 
used  to  force  Home  Rule  on  the  Ulster  people. 
Mr.  Asquith  himself  assumed  the  office  of  Secre- 
tary of  State  for  War,  and  the  "crisis,"  with 
some  resignations  from  the  Army  Council,  grad- 
ually died  away.  A  new  factor,  however,  had  al- 
ready entered  into  the  situation.  The  Unionist 
Party  leaders  upheld  the  right  of  Army  officers 
in  such  circumstances  to  refuse  to  obey  orders. 
"There  is  not,"  said  Mr.  Walter  Long  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  "anybody  on  that  (the  Gov- 
ernment) side  of  the  House  who  has  not  admitted 
that  the  impossible  has  been  arrived  at,  and  that 
you  will  never  be  able  to  use  the  full  forces  of  the 
Crown  to  enforce  the  Bill  upon  Ireland." 

[194] 


REDMOND  AND  ULSTER 

Mr.  Redmond  took  no  part  in  the  debates  in 
Parliament  on  the  "Curragh  Mutiny,"  but  he  did 
not  leave  his  attitude  in  any  doubt.  It  was  ex- 
pressed with  a  warmth  of  language  unusual  in 
him  in  the  following  message  which  he  cabled  the 
Australian  supporters  of  the  Home  Rule  cause: 

"The  Ulster  Orange  plot  is  now  completely  re- 
vealed, Carson  and  his  army  have  not,  and  never 
had,  the  slightest  intention  of  fighting  as  a  fight- 
ing force.  Against  the  regular  troops  they  could 
not  hold  out  a  week.  The  plan  was  to  put  up  the 
appearance  of  a  fight,  and  then,  by  society  influ- 
ences, to  seduce  the  Army  officers,  and  thus  de- 
feat the  will  of  the  people.  The  action  of  the 
commanders  of  some  crack  cavalry  regiments, 
officered  by  aristocrats,  has  now  fully  disclosed 
the  plan  of  campaign.  The  issue  raised  is  wider 
even  than  Home  Rule.  It  is  whether  the  Govern- 
ment are  to  be  brow-beaten  and  dictated  to  by  the 
drawing-rooms  of  London,  seconded  by  officers 
who  are  aristocrats  and  violent  Tory  partisans. 
The  cause  of  Irish  freedom  in  this  fight  has  be- 
come the  cause  of  popular  freedom,  indeed  of  lib- 
erty, throughout  the  world.  It  is  impossible  to 
doubt  the  result  of  such  a  fight.  The  second  read- 
ing of  the  bill  will  be  taken  on  Monday,  and  pro- 
ceeded with  until  it  finds  a  place  on  the  Statute 
Book." 

[195] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

The  second  reading  debate  took  place  on  April 
6th  and  Mr.  Redmond  supported  the  motion  in  a 
speech  of  singular  moderation.  He  had  earlier, 
at  a  St.  Patrick's  Day  banquet  in  London,  de- 
clared emphatically,  in  reference  to  the  Ulster 
question,  that  "if  force  were  interposed  it  would 
be  met  by  force."  All  the  time,  however,  he  had 
asserted  his  influence  to  keep  the  situation  so  far 
as  possible  under  control.  For  example,  just  be- 
fore "the  Curragh  Mutiny,"  when  rumours  were 
afloat  and  the  position  in  Ulster  was  tense  it  was 
proposed  to  hold  a  National  Volunteer  demon- 
stration in  Derry;  Mr.  Redmond  telegraphed  to 
the  organisers  urging  them,  in  the  interests  of 
the  National  cause,  to  have  the  meeting  aban- 
doned. 

In  his  speech  on  the  second  reading  of  the 
Home  Rule  Bill  he  stated  his  position  with  regard 
to  Ulster  frankly.  He  said  that  candidly  he  had 
not  believed,  and  did  not  now  believe,  in  civil  war 
in  Ulster.  He  did  not  say  that  the  opposition  to 
the  Bill  in  Ulster  was  not  real;  he  knew  it  was. 
But  he  believed  that  when  it  became  the  law  of 
the  land  a  change  would  come.  He  did  not  shut 
his  eyes  to  the  possibility  of  disturbance  in  Ul- 
ster. But  the  House  of  Commons  owed  a  duty 
to  itself,  owed  a  duty  to  Ireland,  and  owed  a  duty 
to  the  people  of  Great  Britain,  to  pass  the  Bill 

[196] 


REDMOND  AND  ULSTER 

and  not  allow  itself  to  be  deterred  by  threats  of 
armed  resistance  to  the  law.  The  Bill  was  duly- 
read  a  second  time.  The  capital  fact  remained, 
however,  that  the  Government  had  shirked  a  radi- 
cal solution  of  the  Army  crisis,  and  that  Mr.  Red- 
mond, in  his  references  to  Ulster,  did  not  take 
account  of  the  new  factor  in  the  situation  which 
that  crisis  had  evoked. 

The  excitement  attending  the  "Curragh  Mu- 
tiny" was  still  high  when  another  startling  event 
occurred  in  Ireland.  On  April  24th,  under  cover 
of  a  test  mobilisation  of  the  Ulster  Volunteers,  a 
huge  consignment  of  German  Mauser  rifles,  esti- 
mated to  number  forty  thousand,  was  landed  at 
Larne,  County  Antrim,  and  at  Bangor  and  Don- 
aghadee.  County  Down.  A  proclamation  had 
been  issued  in  December,  19 13,  forbidding  the  im- 
portation of  arms  into  Ireland.  Its  issue  was 
strongly  resented  by  the  National  Volunteers, 
who  saw  cause  for  suspicion  in  the  fact  that  the 
Ulster  Covenanters  should  have  been  allowed  by 
the  Government  for  a  year  to  equip  themselves 
unhindered,  while  an  obstacle  was  at  once  put  in 
the  way  of  Southern  Volunteer  armament.  It 
was  at  this  time  that  Mr.  Redmond  asserted  his 
control  over  the  National  Volunteers. 

Without  the  rise  of  the  National  Volunteers 
there  would  have  been  no  Proclamation  prohibit- 

[197] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

ing  the  importation  of  arms  into  Ireland;  with- 
out that  Proclamation  there  would  have  been  no 
opportunity  for  the  Covenanters  in  Ulster  to 
show  how  great  and  menacing  was  their  strength. 
The  gun-running  at  Larne  and  other  parts  of  the 
North  was  an  event  of  the  first  political  impor- 
tance. It  offered  a  decisive  challenge  to  the  Gov- 
ernment ;  and  the  Government  did  not  accept  the 
challenge.  The  Ulster  Covenanters  had  pro- 
fessed their  indifference  to  the  prohibition  upon 
the  importation  of  arms,  boasting  that  they  were 
already  well  equipped  and  would  have  no  diffi- 
culty in  procuring  further  arms  if  necessary. 

The  departure  of  the  yacht  "Fanny"  from 
Hamburg  carrying  the  German  rifles  was  an- 
nounced in  the  newspaper  three  weeks  before  its 
arrival  at  Larne  on  April  24th.  All  the  Volun- 
teers were  called  out  under  cover  of  a  test  mobi- 
lisation. They  guarded  Belfast,  where  a  decoy- 
boat  was  sent  in  to  mislead  the  police,  and  sur- 
rounded Larne,  Bangor,  and  Donaghadee.  The 
affair  from  the  Nationalist  point  of  view  was  thus 
described  by  Mrs.  J.  R.  Green.  "At  the  famous 
gun-running  into  the  Irish  harbour  the  Provision- 
al Government  took  possession  of  the  King's  high- 
roads, ran  telegraph  wires  to  earth,  confined  the 
police  to  barracks,  seized  harbours,  locked  up  of- 
ficials of  the  Custom,  rounded  up  suspected  Na- 

[198] 


REDMOND  AND  ULSTER 

tionalists  and  locked  them  in  a  farm,  and  gener- 
ally broke  the  public  laws  of  sea  and  land.  Ad- 
mirals, generals,  officials  of  the  coastguard,  of 
police,  of  the  post  office  and  telegraph  service, 
all  connived  at  the  lawless  deeds.  Public  law 
was  suspended."  Evidently  at  Larne  the  Provi- 
sional Government  not  merely  claimed,  but  exer- 
cised, the  right  to  rebel.  The  fact  was  empha- 
sised on  April  29th  in  a  speech  by  Major  Craw- 
ford, the  Captain  of  the  "Fanny,"  to  a  Unionist 
Club  in  County  Down:  "If  they  were  put  out  of 
the  Union  ...  he  would  infinitely  prefer  to 
change  his  allegiance  right  over  to  the  Emperor 
of  Germany,  or  any  one  else  who  had  got  a  proper 
and  stable  government."  ^ 

England  was  startled  by  the  Ulster  Covenan- 
ters' exploit.  Mr.  Asquith  described  the  gun-run- 
ning as  a  "gross,  unprecedented  outrage,"  and 
declared  that  the  Government  would  "take  with- 
out delay  appropriate  steps  to  vindicate  the  au- 
thority of  the  law."  No  such  steps,  however,  were 
taken.  Some  troops  were  moved  up  to  the  North 
of  Ireland  and  two  gun-boats  were  sent  to  Bel- 
fast Lough.  The  imported  rifles  had  in  the  mean- 
time been  distributed  and  concealed  throughout 
the  province.  Ulster  preserved  an  attitude  of 
calm  and  the  troops  and  sailors  were  effusively 

'  "Ourselves  Alone  in  Ulster." 

[199] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

welcomed  by  the  people.  It  was  clear,  however, 
that  any  action  against  the  ringleaders  of  the  Vol- 
unteer movement  or  any  attempt  to  recover  the 
hidden  arms  would  provoke  an  immediate  and 
ardent  resistance. 

The  causes  of  the  Government's  failure  "to 
vindicate  the  authority  of  the  law"  were  two.  In 
the  first  place  there  was  the  evident  fact  that  it 
could  not  depend  upon  the  Army.  Doubtless  suf- 
ficient forces  could  have  been  employed  to  over- 
come the  Ulstermen;  but  the  mere  use  of  them, 
in  Lord  Roberts'  words,  would  "split  the  Army 
from  top  to  bottom."  In  the  next  place  there  was 
the  fact  that  Mr.  Redmond  and  Mr.  Dillon  them- 
selves opposed  reprisals.  The  Cabinet  was  itself 
divided  between  forcing  the  issue  and  letting  mat- 
ters slide ;  a  majority,  perhaps,  favoured  the  latter 
course;  and  the  attitude  of  the  Nationalist  lead- 
ers probably  determined  it  in  this  course. 

This  attitude  of  Mr.  Redmond  and  Mr.  Dillon 
(which  did  not  become  known  until  later)  ap- 
peared remarkable,  but  it  was  easily  explained. 
In  general  Mr.  Redmond  was  not  in  the  habit  of 
taking  his  fences  before  he  came  to  them,  and  he 
doubtless  preferred  to  let  the  situation  develop 
normally,  trusting  that  the  development  would 
in  some  way  turn  favourably  for  his  hopes.  But, 
more  particularly,  the  Nationalist  leaders  were 

[200] 


REDMOND  AND  ULSTER 

now  themselves  (though  very  much  against  Mr. 
Redmond's  will)  involved  in  illegal  associations 
in  the  South  of  Ireland;  and,  if  they  had  demand- 
ed punishment  for  the  Ulstermen,  they  would 
have  left  themselves  open  to  the  charge — and  it 
would  certainly  have  been  brought  by  critics  on 
their  own  side — of  conspiring  against  the  exist- 
ence of  the  National  Volunteers,  whose  spokes- 
men expressed  the  greatest  admiration  for  the 
daring  and  cleverness  of  the  law-breakers  of  Ul- 
ster. 

The  circumstances  attending  the  "Curragh 
Mutiny"  and  the  Larne  gun-running  destroyed 
the  hopes  that  Ulster  Unionism  might  develop 
along  anti-English  lines.  The  same  circum- 
stances showed  that,  in  the  Government's  view, 
it  was  not  practicable  to  employ  the  forces  of  the 
Crown  to  coerce  Unionist  Ulster.  Casement,  in 
his  speech  from  the  dock  at  his  trial  two  years 
later,  held  that  these  events  gave  proof  that  Brit- 
ish military  power  was  always  in  the  last  resort 
the  enemy  of  Irish  Nationalism.  The  success  of 
the  "Curragh  Mutiny"  and  the  frank  delight  of 
the  English  upper  classes  at  the  equally  successful 
coup  at  Larne  were  widely  regarded  in  Ireland  as 
supplying  convincing  proof  that  Ireland  could  ex- 
pect no  fair  play  from  those  who  really  ruled  in 
England.   Unquestionably  these  events  contribut- 

[201] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

ed  towards  promoting  a  revolutionary  sentiment 
in  Ireland  and  shook  Mr.  Redmond's  position  in 
the  country  by  exposing  the  weak  spot  in  his 
policy  of  alliance  with  English  Liberalism. 

On  the  other  hand  he  gained  popularity  from 
his  association  with  the  National  Volunteers. 
The  Committee  of  that  body  issued  in  June  a 
manifesto  urging  the  immediate  withdrawal  of 
the  Proclamation  prohibiting  the  importation  of 
arms  into  Ireland,  and  declaring  that  the  action 
of  the  Government  had  placed  in  the  way  of 
Irishmen  favourable  to  national  autonomy  ob- 
stacles which  "admittedly  are  inoperative  in  the 
case  of  those  opposed  to  Irish  self-government," 
that  ''the  right  of  free  people  to  carry  arms  in 
defence  of  this  freedom"  was  "an  elementary  part 
of  political  liberty,"  and  that  the  denial  of  that 
right  was  "a  denial  of  political  liberty  and  consist- 
ent only  with  a  despotic  form  of  government." 
The  concluding  passage  of  the  manifesto,  which 
was  signed  by  Mr.  John  MacNeill  and  Mr.  L.  J. 
Kettle,  showed  that  the  relations  between  the  Vol- 
unteer organisation  and  Mr.  Redmond  were 
closer  and  more  genial.  "We  are  glad  to  recog- 
nise," it  ran,  "that  the  time  has  come  when  the 
members  of  the  Irish  Parliamentary  Party,  with 
Mr.  John  Redmond  at  its  head,  have  been  able, 
owing  to  the  development  of  the  Irish  Volunteer 

[202] 


REDMOND  AND  ULSTER 

Organisation  on  sound  and  well-defined  National 
lines,  to  associate  themselves  by  public  declaration 
with  a  work  which  the  nation  has  spontaneously 
taken  in  hand." 

The  militarist  Morning  Post  had  called  upon 
the  Government  to  admit  the  fact  that  "the 
Army  has  killed  the  Home  Rule  Bill."  The  Gov- 
ernment did  not  do  so  explicitly;  but  it  was  per- 
fectly clear  that  the  majority  of  the  Cabinet  and 
the  Liberal  Party  were  not  sufficiently  ardent  in 
the  cause  of  Irish  Nationalism  to  provoke  on  its 
behalf  the  sentiment  of  civil  war  in  their  own 
country.  The  Army  certainly  appeared  to  have 
"killed  the  Home  Rule  Bill"  so  far  as  Unionist 
Ulster  was  concerned.  To  every  party,  the  Irish 
Party  included,  the  exclusion  of  Ulster,  or  a  part 
of  the  province,  from  the  Home  Rule  Bill  was 
now  a  practical  certainty. 

The  Parliamentary  situation,  however,  was  an- 
omalous. The  Government  still  proposed  to  pro- 
ceed with  the  Home  Rule  Bill  and  with  the 
Amending  Bill  which,  from  opposite  points  of 
view,  Mr.  Redmond  and  Sir  Edward  Carson  both 
alike  rejected.  While  this  somewhat  unreal 
situation  persisted  at  Westminster  excitement 
was  running  very  high  in  Ireland,  and  the  grav- 
est fears  were  entertained  that  some  unfortunate 

[«08] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

incident  on  one  side  or  the  other  might  set  a  light 
to  the  explosive  material  in  the  country. 

Finally,  when  the  Home  Rule  Bill  had  again 
been  introduced  and  read  a  second  time,  the  King 
intervened  with  a  proposal  that  a  conference  be- 
tween leaders  of  both  sides  should  be  held,  to 
see  if  some  way  out  of  the  impasse  could  not  be 
discovered.  The  King's  proposal  was,  of  course, 
accepted,  and  the  conference  assembled  in  Buck- 
ingham Palace.  It  consisted  of  Mr.  Asquith  and 
Mr.  Lloyd  George  representing  the  Government ; 
Mr.  Redmond  and  Mr.  Dillon  representing  the 
^  Nationalists,  Lord  Lansdowne  and  Mr.  Bonar 
Law  representing  the  English,  and  Sir  Ed- 
ward Carson  and  Colonel  Craig  representing  the 
Ulster  Unionists,  with  Mr.  Lowther,  the  Speaker 
of  the  House  of  Commons,  as  Chairman. 

The  clouds  of  war  were  beginning  to  gather  in 
Europe  after  the  murder  of  the  Archduke  Francis 
Ferdinand  at  Sarajevo  when  the  Buckingham 
Palace  Conference  assembled.  The  King  in  per- 
son addressed  the  delegates.  What  happened  at 
the  conference  was  never  officially  disclosed;  but 
it  was  assumed  that  the  King  in  his  address  called 
attention  to  the  European  situation  and  urged  the 
importance  of  an  agreed  settlement  from  the  Eu- 
ropean as  well  as  the  Irish  point  of  view.  The 
prospect  of  a  European  war  in  which  Great  Brit- 

[204] 


REDMOND  AND  ULSTER 

ain  would  be  involved,  however,  was  at  this  time 
still  remote;  had  it  been  otherwise,  the  issue  of 
the  conference  would  probably  have  been  differ- 
ent. As  it  was  there  was  no  sufficient  stimulus 
towards  agreement,  though  undoubtedly  serious 
effects  were  made  to  reach  it.  Though,  as  has 
been  stated,  nothing  was  officially  made  public 
with  regard  to  the  proceedings  of  the  conference, 
it  was  currently  reported  that  Mr.  Redmond  and 
his  colleagues  were  now  ready  to  make  greater 
concessions  than  those  embodied  in  the  proposals 
recently  rejected  by  Sir  Edward  Carson:  the 
"time  limit"  provision,  it  was  contemplated, 
should  be  omitted.  It  was  understood  that  the 
conference  finally  broke  down  over  the  question 
of  the  counties  of  Tyrone  and  Fermanagh,  which, 
although  inhabited  by  a  Nationalist  majority, 
were  regarded  by  the  Ulster  Protestants  as  an 
inalienable  heritage. 

This  question  of  the  exclusion  of  a  part  of  Ul- 
ster from  the  operation  of  Home  Rule — "parti- 
tion" as  it  came  to  be  called  in  Ireland — was  to 
recur  after  the  rising  of  1916,  and  it  will  be  con- 
venient to  consider  here  Mr.  Redmond's  attitude 
towards  it.  No  agreement  was  reached  on  the 
question  at  the  Buckingham  Palace  Conference; 
but  in  19 1 6  an  agreement,  whereby  six  Ulster 
counties  were  to  be  provisionally  excluded  from 

[206] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

the  operation  of  the  Home  Rule  Act,  was  reached, 
though  never  ratified,  between  Mr.  Redmond  and 
Sir  Edward  Carson.  Mr.  Redmond,  before  he 
accepted  this  proposal,  had  said  that  it  was  "un- 
workable." That  apparent  contradiction  prob- 
ably supplies  us  with  the  clue  to  his  attitude.  The 
view  which  he  seems  to  have  taken  was  this :  The 
Ulstermen's  demand  for  exclusion  was  never  put 
forward  on  its  merits.  It  was  rather  a  tactical 
move,  made  with  the  object  of  putting  a  spoke  in 
the  wheel  of  Home  Rule,  in  the  expectation  that 
the  "partition"  of  Ireland — "a  statutory  denial 
of  the  National  claim,"  as  a  Tory  spokesman  tri- 
umphantly described  it — would  never  be  accepted 
by  the  Nationalists.  This  Ulster  position,  how- 
ever— if  I  may  pursue  the  military  metaphor — 
was  capable  of  being  outflanked.  The  correct 
tactical  reply  to  the  Ulstermen's  demand  for  ex- 
clusion was  to  treat  it  not  as  a  tactical  move  to 
defeat  Home  Rule,  but  as  a  demand  put  forward 
on  its  own  merits;  to  accept  it  as  such;  and  to 
confront  the  Ulstermen  with  a  real  prospect  of 
"partition."  Those  industries  largely  interna- 
tional in  character  which  exerted  a  great  influ- 
ence in  Ulster  Unionist  politics  might  be  un- 
moved by  such  a  prospect,  but  the  commercial  in- 
terests in  Ulster  which  depended  upon  the  rest  of 
Ireland  would  be  in  a  different  case. 

[206] 


REDMOND  AND  ULSTER 

Sir  Horace  Plunkett  in  191 7,  when  urging  the 
Ulster  Unionists  to  take  part  in  the  Irish  Con- 
vention, declared  that  "unless  I  am  greatly  mis- 
taken, partition  in  the  last  analysis  may  prove  to 
be  administratively  and  financially  as  distasteful 
to  the  North-East  as  for  other  reasons  it  is  to  the 
rest  of  Ireland."  It  was  not  to  be  expected  that 
the  Ulstermen  would  retire  at  once  from  the  po- 
sition which  they  had  adopted  with  such  public 
and  dogmatic  emphasis;  but  a  short  exposure  to 
the  practical  disadvantages  of  partition  would 
probably  decide  them  to  throw  in  their  lot  with 
Home  Rule  Ireland.  It  was  a  case  upon  which 
the  old  Irish  saying  that  the  longest  way  round  is 
sometimes  the  shortest  way  home  had  a  very  rele- 
vant bearing.  All  this,  perhaps,  was  implicit  in 
Mr.  Redmond's  acceptance  of  an  expedient  which 
he  characterised  as  "unworkable."  Some  such 
calculation,  at  least,  we  may  assume,  lay  behind 
the  attitude  towards  "partition"  of  a  leader  whose 
shrewd  knowledge  of  permanent  political  forces 
equalled  his  ready  grasp  of  the  immediate  prac- 
tical possibilities  of  any  given  political  situation. 
Mr.  Redmond  possessed  a  political  quality  the 
worth  of  which  is  commonly  misunderstood  and 
under-rated  in  Irish  politics — the  quality  of  pa- 
tience. 

No  agreement  in  the  "partition"  question,  how- 
[207] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

ever,  was  reached  at  the  Buckingham  Palace  Con- 
ference. The  conference  broke  up  on  July  24th. 
Sir  Edward  Carson,  in  his  speech  in  the  House 
of  Commons  on  Mr.  Redmond's  death,  revealed 
an  incident  of  this  time  highly  characteristic  of 
the  man.  "As  one  who  has  been  prominently 
identified  with  this  great  controversy,"  said  Sir 
Edward  Carson,  "I  say  with  absolute  sincerity 
that  during  the  whole  of  this  period  I  cannot  call 
to  mind  one  bitter  word  having  passed  between 
us.  Just  before  the  war,  when  the  Irish  situation 
was  most  threatening,  I  remember  John  Red- 
mond coming  to  me,  after  the  breaking  up  of  the 
Buckingham  Palace  Conference,  and  saying,  Tor 
the  sake  of  the  old  time  on  circuit,  let  us  have  a 
good  shake  hands.'  " 

The  failure  of  the  Buckingham  Palace  Confer- 
ence was  celebrated  in  Ulster  on  the  following 
day  by  a  parade  through  Belfast,  organised  by 
the  Provisional  Government,  of  five  thousand 
men  in  khaki  with  bands,  rifles,  and  machine- 
guns.  In  Parliament  the  Prime  Minister  an- 
nounced that,  the  Conference  having  failed,  the 
Government  could  only  proceed  with  the  Amend- 
ing Bill,  the  second  reading  of  which  was  accord- 
ingly set  down  for  July  27th.  Before  that  date 
was  reached,  however,  a  grave  event  had  oc- 
curred in  Ireland. 

[208] 


REDMOND  AND  ULSTER 

The  National  Volunteers  had  been  preparing 
a  coup  by  which  they  should  show  that  in  re- 
source and  daring  they  equalled  the  Ulster  gun- 
runners. Early  in  the  forenoon  of  July  26th — a 
Sunday — a  large  yacht  sailed  into  Howth  Har- 
bour, near  Dublin.  Simultaneously  with  their  ar- 
rival a  force  of  about  eight  hundred  Volunteers 
took  possession  of  the  pier  and  began  to  unload 
the  rifles  which  formed  her  cargo.  With  these 
they  marched  off  to  Dublin.  News  of  the  opera- 
tion was  telephoned  to  Dublin,  and  a  force  of 
Metropolitan  Police,  with  two  hundred  soldiers, 
was  sent  to  intercept  the  Volunteers.  The  police 
and  military  force  and  the  Volunteers  met  half- 
way between  Howth  and  Dublin.  The  Volun- 
teers refused  to  surrender  the  arms,  and  a  scuffle 
followed,  in  which  a  non-commissioned  officer  of 
the  King's  Own  Scottish  Borderers,  the  regiment 
concerned,  was  wounded,  and  some  Volunteers 
had  their  heads  injured  by  blows  of  clubbed 
rifles.  The  majority  of  the  Volunteers,  seeing  the 
direct  road  barred,  took  to  the  fields  and  made 
their  way  by  circuitous  routes  to  Dublin,  where 
the  news  of  the  affair  created  intense  excite- 
ment. 

The  detachment  of  Scottish  Borderers,  march- 
ing back  into  Dublin  after  the  affray,  was  fol- 
lowed by  a  crowd,  which  made  hostile  demonstra- 

[209] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

tions.  At  a  part  of  the  quays  known  as  Bach- 
elor's Walk  some  soldiers  turned  and  fired  on  the 
crowd,  killing  three  men  and  injuring  many- 
others.  This  unhappy  incident  aroused  the  most 
bitter  and  violent  feeling  in  Ireland.  On  the  fol- 
lowing day — July  27th — Mr.  Redmond  at  once 
moved  the  adjournment  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons in  order  to  draw  attention  to  the  affair,  and 
did  so  in  a  speech  of  great  gravity,  remarking 
that  members  would  acknowledge  that  it  was  a 
difficult  task  for  him  to  deal  with  the  matter  with- 
out some  vehemence  and  heat,  but  he  would  en- 
deavour to  deal  with  it  in  a  perfectly  judicial 
spirit.  In  this  matter,  he  said  blood  had  been 
shed  and  life  had  been  lost,  and  it  seemed  to  him 
that,  unless  most  definite  and  drastic  steps  were 
taken  to  prevent  a  recurrence  of  events  of  this 
kind,  disastrous  consequences  must  certainly  en- 
sue. He  proceeded  to  review  at  length  the  de- 
velopment of  the  Irish  situation  since  the  founda- 
tion of  the  Ulster  Volunteers  and  the  subsequent 
issue,  after  that  force  was  armed,  of  the  Procla- 
mation forbidding  importation  of  arms  into  Ire- 
land. 

At  the  outset  he  declared  that  when  the  Larne 
episode  occurred  he  and  his  colleagues  realised 
the  terrible  risks  and  the  terrible  danger  which 
proceedings    of    the    kind    entailed.      He    then 

[210] 


REDMOND  AND  ULSTER 

recalled  the  fact  that,  when  the  Government  an- 
nounced its  decision  not  to  take  any  immediate 
proceedings  against  the  Larne  gun-runners,  he 
and  his  colleagues  entirely  approved  of  its  atti- 
tude. Before  the  Government  took  its  decision 
"they  (the  Irish  party)  made  their  view  known, 
and  they  thought,  after  all  that  had  happened,  it 
would  have  been  a  futile,  exasperating  and  use- 
less proceeding  to  enter  upon  a  series  of  prosecu- 
tions in  connection  with  that  transaction."  *'If 
people  held,"  said  Mr.  Redmond,  ''that  the  Gov- 
ernment was  wrong  in  not  prosecuting  the  Larne 
gun-runners,  he  shared  the  responsibility."  But, 
he  added,  he  and  his  colleagues  had  urged  over 
and  over  again  upon  the  Government  the  advis- 
ability of  the  withdrawal,  or  at  any  rate  the  sus- 
pension of  the  Proclamation.  He  then  read  a  let- 
ter to  the  Chief  Secretary  in  which,  on  June  30th, 
he  had  put  his  views  upon  the  matter  on  record. 
In  this  letter  he  urged  the  withdrawal  of  the 
Proclamation  on  various  grounds,  especially  its 
unequal  working  between  North  and  South. 
"This  effect  of  this  unequal  working  of  the  Proc- 
lamation," wrote  Mr.  Redmond,  "has  been  grave 
among  our  people,  and  has  tended  to  increase 
both  their  exasperation  and  their  apprehension. 
The  apprehensions  of  our  people  are  justified  to 
th-i  utmost.    They  find  themselves,  especially  in 

[211] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

the  North,  faced  by  a  large  drilled,  organised 
and  armed  body.  Furthermore,  the  incident  of 
the  Curragh  has  given  them  a  fixed  idea  that  they 
cannot  rely  on  the  Army  for  protection.  The 
possession  of  arms  by  Nationalists  would,  in  these 
circumstances,  be  no  provocation  for  disorder, 
but  be  a  means  of  preserving  the  peace  by  con- 
fronting one  armed  force  with  another,  not  help- 
less, but,  by  being  armed,  fully  able  to  protect 
themselves." 

Having  read  the  remainder  of  this  letter,  Mr. 
Redmond  proceeded  to  say  that  its  concluding 
paragraph  exactly  described  what  had  happened 
on  the  previous  day  in  Dublin.  No  such  attempt 
to  disarm  a  body  of  Volunteers,  he  added,  had 
been  made  in  all  the  long  months  that  had  passed 
in  Ulster,  and  he  asked  who  was  responsible  for 
"this  monstrous  attempt  to  discriminate  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  law  between  the  various  class- 
es of  His  Majesty's  subjects  in  Ireland."  The 
real  responsibility  rested  on  those  who  requisi- 
tioned the  troops.  (This  was  done  by  Mr.  Har- 
rel,  the  Assistant  Commissioner  of  Police,  whom 
the  Government  suspended  pending  an  inquiry; 
Sir  John  Ross,  the  Chief  Commissioner,  who  was 
technically  responsible,  sent  in  his  resignation. ) 

Summing  up,  Mr.  Redmond  asked,  first  of  all, 
that  Sir  John  Ross  should  be  suspended  and  put 

[212] 


REDMOND  AND  ULSTER 

on  his  trial ;  secondly,  that  there  should  be  a  full 
judicial  and  military  inquiry  into  the  affair; 
thirdly,  that  the  offending  regiment  should  be  re- 
moved from  Ireland.  He  asked,  finally,  for  the 
revocation  of  the  Proclamation,  which,  as  it 
stood,  would  be  a  constant  source  of  risk  and  of 
danger.  He  asked  that  the  law  should  be  admin- 
istered impartially;  that  that  which  was  not  re- 
yarded  as  a  crime  in  Ulster  should  not  be  regarded 
as  a  crime  in  other  counties  in  Ireland,  that  so 
long  as  the  Ulster  Volunteers  were  allowed  to 
drill  and  arm,  and  march  with  fixed  bayonets  and 
machine  guns.  Nationalists  should  be  allowed  to 
do  the  same.  In  conclusion,  said  Mr.  Redmond, 
with  emphasis,  "I  would  let  the  House  clearly 
understand  that  four-fifths  of  the  Irish  people 
will  not  submit  any  longer  to  be  bullied  or  pun- 
ished or  penalised  or  shot  for  conduct  that  was 
permitted  to  go  scot  free  in  the  open  light  of  day 
in  every  county  in  Ulster  by  other  sections  of 
their  fellow-countrymen." 

In  what  manner  this  critical  situation  might 
have  developed  in  normal  circumstances,  it  would 
be  idle  to  speculate.  The  development  of  the 
European  crisis  rapidly  submerged  the  Irish 
crisis  to  which  the  newspapers  had  been  devoting 
all  their  attention  for  the  past  eighteen  months. 
The  Amending  Bill,  consideration  of  which  had 

[213] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

been  postponed  by  the  Bachelor's  Walk  affair 
in  Dublin,  was  set  down  again  for  debate  on  July 
30th.  When  that  date  was  reached  the  Govern- 
ment and  the  opposition,  in  view  of  the  menacing 
situation  in  Europe,  decided  upon  a  further  post- 
ponement of  the  Bill,  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
never  came  before  the  House  of  Commons  again. 
In  Ireland,  for  the  moment,  it  was  as  if  a 
sponge  had  been  passed  over  the  tangled  and  tu- 
multuous history  of  the  past  few  years.  One  inci- 
dent sufficiently  illustrated  the  changed  atmos- 
phere in  Ireland  which  the  outbreak  of  war 
at  once  produced.  The  victims  of  the  shooting 
affair  in  Dublin  had  been  given  a  great  popular 
funeral.  The  regiment  concerned,  the  King's 
Own  Scottish  Borderers,  had  been  confined  to 
Barracks,  and  Mr.  Redmond  had  demanded  its 
removal  from  Ireland.  The  same  regiment,  on 
the  day  of  its  embarkation  on  the  mobilisation  of 
the  British  Expeditionary  Force,  was  heartily 
cheered  through  the  streets  of  Dublin. 


[214] 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE   WAR   AND   REDMOND's   CHOICE 

ONE  thing  I  would  say,"  said  Sir  Edward 
Grey,  the  Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign 
Affairs,  in  his  speech  in  the  House  of  Commons 
on  August  3rd,  the  eve  of  the  British  declaration 
of  war  against  Germany ;  "the  one  bright  spot  in 
the  very  dreadful  situation  is  Ireland.  The  posi- 
tion in  Ireland — and  this  I  should  like  to  be  clearly 
understood  abroad — is  not  a  consideration  among 
the  things  we  have  to  take  into  account  now." 

It  was  this  statement  which  drew  from  Mr. 
Redmond  the  historic  speech  in  which  he  ranged 
Ireland  beside  Great  Britain  in  the  event  of  war. 
His  speech  was  short,  and  it  deserves  to  be  quoted 
in  full.  "I  hope,"  he  said,  **the  House  will  not 
think  me  impertinent  to  intervene  in  the  debate, 
but  I  am  moved  to  do  so  a  great  deal  by  that  sen- 
tence in  the  speech  of  the  Foreign  Secretary  in 
which  he  said  that  the  one  bright  spot  in  the  situa- 
tion was  the  changed  feeling  in  Ireland.  Sir,  in 
past  time,  when  this  Empire  has  been  engaged  in 

[216] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

these  terrible  enterprises,  it  is  true  that  it  would 
be  the  utmost  affectation  and  folly  on  my  part  to 
deny  that  the  sympathies  of  Nationalist  Ireland, 
for  reasons  deep  down  in  the  centuries  of  history, 
have  been  estranged  from  this  country.  But  al- 
low me  to  say  that  what  h^s  occurred  in  recent 
years  has  altered  the  situation  completely.  I  must 
not  touch  upon  any  controversial  topic,  but  this 
I  may  be  allowed  to  say,  that  a  wider  knowledge 
of  the  real  facts  of  Irish  history  has  altered  the 
view  of  the  democracy  of  this  country  towards 
the  Irish  question,  and  I  honestly  believe  that  the 
democracy  of  Ireland  will  turn  with  the  utmost 
anxiety  and  sympathy  to  this  country  in  every 
trial  and  danger  with  which  she  is  faced. 

"There  is  a  possibility  of  history  repeating  it- 
self. The  House  will  remember  that  in  1778,  at 
the  end  of  the  disastrous  American  War,  when 
it  might  be  said  that  the  military  force  of  this 
country  was  almost  at  its  lowest  ebb,  the  shores 
of  Ireland  were  threatened  with  invasion.  Then 
100,000  Irish  Volunteers  sprang  into  existence 
for  the  purpose  of  defending  those  shores.  At 
first,  however — and  how  sad  is  the  reading  of 
the  history  of  those  days — no  Catholic  was  al- 
lowed to  be  enrolled  in  that  body  of  Volunteers, 
yet  from  the  first  day  the  Catholics  of  the  South 
and  West  subscribed  their  money  and  sent  it  for 

[216] 


THE  WAR  AND  REDMOND'S  CHOICE 

the  army  of  their  Protestant  fellow-countrymen. 
Ideas  widened  as  time  went  on,  and  finally  the 
Catholics  of  the  South  were  armed  and  enrolled 
as  brothers  in  arms  with  their  fellow-countrymen. 
May  history  repeat  itself.  To-day  there  are  in 
Ireland  two  large  bodies  of  Volunteers,  one  of 
which  has  sprung  into  existence  in  the  North  and 
another  in  the  South.  I  say  to  the  Government 
that  they  may  to-morrow  withdraw  every  one  of 
their  troops  from  Ireland.  Ireland  will  be  de- 
fended by  her  armed  sons  from  invasion,  and  for 
that  purpose  the  armed  Catholics  in  the  South 
will  be  only  too  glad  to  join  arms  with  the  armed 
Protestant  Ulstermen.  Is  it  too  much  to  hope 
that  out  of  this  situation  a  result  may  spring 
which  will  be  good,  not  merely  for  the  Empire, 
but  for  the  future  welfare  and  integrity  of  the 
Irish  nation?  Whilst  Irishmen  are  in  favour  of 
peace,  and  would  desire  to  save  the  democracy  of  " 
this  country  from  all  the  horrors  of  war,  whilst 
we  will  make  any  possible  sacrifice  for  that  pur- 
pose, still  if  the  necessity  is  forced  upon  this  coun- 
try we  oflfer  this  to  the  Government  of  the  day. 
They  may  take  their  troops  away,  and  if  it  is  al- 
lowed to  us,  in  comradeship  with  our  brothers  in 
the  North,  we  will  ourselves  defend  the  shores  of 
Ireland." 

A  writer  in  the  London  Times,  believed  to  be 
[217] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

Mr.  Birrell,  afterwards  suggested  that  in  thus 
offering  Ireland's  assistance  in  the  war  Mr.  Red- 
mond "took  the  curve  too  sharply."  There  is, 
however,  no  reason  to  believe  that  he  was  mis- 
taken in  his  interpretation  of  the  mind  of  the  over- 
whelming majority  of  Nationallists.  Pro-Ger- 
manism in  Ireland  at  the  outbreak  of  war  was 
an  altogether  negligible  sentiment.  It  existed,  of 
course:  the  revolutionary  Irish  Freedom,  edited 
by  Sean  MacDermott,  afterwards  one  of  the  sig- 
natories of  the  Irish  Republican  Proclamation  in 
April,  19 1 6,  was  frankly  pro-German,  and  Roger 
Casement,  in  a  series  of  articles  published  in 
America  just  before  and  immediately  after  the 
declaration  of  war  developed  the  pro-German  for- 
eign policy  for  Ireland  which  he  had  just  ex- 
pounded in  "Ireland,  Germany,  and  the  Next 
War"  in  the  summer  of  19 13.  Sinn  Fein,  through 
its  official  organ,  issued  a  declaration  of  neutral- 
ity. "Ireland,"  wrote  Mr.  Griffith,  "is  not  at  war 
with  Germany.  She  has  no  quarrel  with  any  Con- 
tinental Power.  England  is  at  war  with  Germany 
.  .  .  Germany  is  nothing  to  us  in  herself,  but  she 
is  not  an  enemy." 

But  events  showed  how  right  Mr.  Redmond 
was  in  his  estimate  of  the  Irish  attitude  towards 
the  war,  and  how  little  weight  Sinn  Fein  car- 
ried, still  less  the  revolutionary  pro-Germanism 

[218] 


THE  WAR  AND  REDMOND'S  CHOICE 

of  MacDermott  and  Casement.  Immediately 
after  Mr.  Redmond's  declaration  the  Standing 
Committee  of  the  National  Volunteers  unani- 
mously expressed  their  complete  readiness  to  take 
joint  action  with  the  Ulster  Volunteers  for  the 
defence  of  Ireland.  The  National  Volunteers  in 
the  three  Southern  Provinces  rose  to  the  height 
of  their  popularity,  and  numerous  peers  and  lead- 
ing Unionists  became  officers  in  the  force  and 
induced  their  followers  to  join  it.  The  Ulster 
Unionists,  however,  stubbornly  refused  to  share 
in  the  emotion  of  a  united  Ireland. 

Perhaps  Mr.  Redmond  had  hoped  against  hope 
that  the  great  gesture  with  which  he  pledged  Na- 
tionalist Ireland's  support  in  the  war  would  recon- 
cile the  Protestants  of  Ulster  to  the  idea  of  Home 
Rule.  When  that  hope  failed  he  had  perforce  to 
descend  to  the  plane  of  political  realities.  At  the 
moment  the  outstanding  fact  in  the  political  situa- 
tion from  the  Irish  point  of  view  was  that,  while 
the  Home  Rule  Bill  was  ripe  for  passage  into  law 
under  the  Parliament  Act,  it  had  not  yet  been 
safely  placed  upon  the  Statute  Book.  Mr.  Red- 
mond adopted  the  position  that  when  the  circum- 
stances of  the  war  arose  it  was  the  Government's 
declared  intention  to  put  the  Home  Rule  Bill  on 
the  Statute  Book  whether  the  proposals  embodied 
in  the  Amending  Bill  were  accepted  or  not. 

[219] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

"We  desire/'  he  said  in  the  House  of  Commons 
on  the  last  day  of  August,  "that  this  thing  shall 
be  settled  with  as  little  controversy  as  possible. 
At  the  same  time  we  must  emphatically  say  that 
any  proposals  w^hich  will  have  the  effect  of  de- 
priving us  of  the  enactment  of  the  Irish  measure 
would  be  instantly  and  warmly  resented  by  us. 
Let  me  say  one  word  more.  There  has  arisen  in 
Ireland  the  greatest  spirit  that  has  ever  arisen  in 
the  history  of  the  connection  between  the  two 
countries  for  the  reconciliation  between  the  peo- 
ple of  Ireland  and  the  people  of  this  country. 
There  is  to-day,  I  venture  to  say,  a  feeling  of 
friendliness  to  this  country,  and  a  desire  to  join 
hands  in  the  interest  of  this  country,  which  never 
used  to  be  found  in  the  past,  and  I  say  with  all 
respect  that  it  would  not  only  be  folly,  but  it 
would  be  a  crime,  if  that  spirit  were  in  any  de- 
gree marred  by  any  action  which  this  country 
might  take.  I  ask  the  House,  and  I  ask  all  sec- 
tions of  the  House,  to  take  a  course  which  will 
enable  me  to  go  back  to  Ireland  and  translate 
into  vigorous  action  the  spirit  of  the  words  I  have 
used  to-day."  The  reference  in  the  last  sentence, 
of  course,  was  to  recruiting;  for  it  was  now  clear 
from  Lord  Kitchener's  proposals  that  men  were 
required  not  for  home  defence,  but  for  active  ser- 
vice abroad. 

[220] 


THE  WAR  AXD  REDMOND'S  CHOICE 

The  proposal  to  place  the  Home  Rule  Bill  on 
the  Statute  Book  was  bitterly  opposed  by  the 
Unioiiist  Party.  Finally,  however,  on  September 
15th,  Mr.  Asqoith  amiotmced  the  Government's 
dedsicm  to  pass  it  into  law  and  simultaneously  to 
pot  upon  the  Statute  Book  a  Su^>ensory  Act  pro- 
vidii^  that  no  effective  steps  should  be  taken  to 
bring  it  into  practical  operation  for  at  least  twdve 
mcHidis,  the  suspensory  power  to  be  further  in- 
[  voked  by  Order  in  G>undl  if  the  war  should  still 
continue.  This  dedsicm  Sir  Edward  Carson  de- 
scribed as  "an  act  of  unparalleled  treachery  and 
betrayal,"  and  Mr.  Bonar  Law  led  the  Oppositicm 
out  of  the  House  of  Gxmnons  as  a  protest  against 
it  Mr.  Redmond,  on  the  other  hand,  instantly 
interpreted  it  as  a  call  upon  him  to  redeem  the 
pledge  which  he  had  given  a  fortnight  earlier. 

He  defined  his  attitude  towards  the  war  in  diese 
words:  **In  this  war,  for  the  first  time  for  over 
a  hundred  years,  Ireland  felt  that  her  interests 
were  the  same  as  those  of  England.  She  felt  that 
the  British  democracy  had  kept  faith  with  her, 
and  she  knew  that  it  was  a  just  war.  She  was 
moved  in  a  very  special  way  by  the  fact  that  it 
was  a  war  undertaken  in  the  defence  of  a  small 
nation  and  an  oppressed  people.  There  was  not 
a  heart  in  Ireland  which  was  not  stirred  by  ad- 
miration for  gallant  Belgium,  and  with  a  desire 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

to  come  to  her  assistance.  Alsace  also  appealed 
to  the  sympathy  of  the  Irish  people  in  its  desire 
to  go  back  to  its  ancient  nationality.  The  Poles 
also  had  upon  their  side  the  sympathy  of  the  Irish 
people  for  many  generations.  He  would  say  noth- 
ing of  France,  the  old  friend  of  Ireland  and  cham- 
pion of  democratic  freedom.  The  manhood  of 
Ireland  would  spring  to  their  aid  in  this  war.  On 
hundreds  of  platforms  during  the  last  few  years 
he  had  declared  that  when  the  rights  of  Ireland, 
were  admitted  by  the  democracy  of  England  Ire- 
land would  become  the  strongest  arm  in  the  de- 
fence of  the  Empire.  The  test  had  come  sooner 
than  they  expected,  but  he  told  the  Prime  Minis- 
ter that  it  would  be  honourably  met.  It  was 
the  duty  of  his  countrymen  and  should  be  their 
honour  to  take  their  place  in  the  fighting  line." 
Immediately  after  this  speech  in  which  he 
saluted  the  enactment  of  Home  Rule  Mr.  Red- 
mond crossed  to  Ireland  to  take  up  the  task  of 
recruiting.  The  atmosphere  in  Ireland  was  in 
the  main  propitious.  The  Irish  people  are  tradi- 
tionally a  military  people,  and  the  times  in  Ire- 
land, upon  the  outbreak  of  war,  were  war-like, 
so  that  martial  enthusiasm  was  readily  diverted 
into  the  unaccustomed  channel  of  service  in  the 
British  Army.  That  loaded  atmosphere  of  gun- 
powder, in  which  Irishmen  had  lived  for  a  year 


THE  WAR  AND  REDMOND'S  CHOICE 

and  more  before  the  war,  found  its  natural  dis- 
charge in  one  direction  in  the  call  of  arms  in 
Europe;  as  later  it  was  to  find  another  and  un- 
happy discharge  in  the  rising  of  Easter  Week, 
19 1 6.  Further,  the  appeal  of  the  French  tradi- 
tion— the  hospitality  which  the  "wild  geese" 
found  in  France,  of  Sarsfield  and  St.  Ruth,  of 
the  Irish  Brigade  which  fought  under  the  French 
flag  in  many  a  Continental  field,  of  '98  and  Hum- 
bert— was  potent,  despite  the  sometimes  anti- 
clerical policy  of  the  Third  Republic,  to  align 
the  sentiment  of  Ireland  on  the  side  of  the  Al- 
lies. Again,  the  German  invasion  of  Belgium, 
that  monstrous  outrage  upon  a  small  nationality, 
was  bound  to  evoke  a  response  from  the  country 
whose  whole  history  was  that  of  the  assertion  of 
the  rights  of  small  nationalities. 

But  Ireland  was  in  an  even  greater  degree  than 
England  isolated  from  European  politics,  and 
the  traditional  feeling  against  England  as  her 
only  enemy  was  deep-seated  and  strong.  Her 
people  could  scarcely  be  expected  to  intervene  in 
the  Allied  cause  in  any  mood  of  pure  altruism  un- 
less it  had  seemed  to  them  that  in  striking  a  blow 
for  the  rights  of  small  nationalities  in  Belgium 
they  were  also  striking  a  blow  for  the  rights  of 
small  nationalities  in  Ireland.  Mr.  Redmond  was 
right  in  insisting  that  the  placing  of  Home  Rule 

[223] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

on  the  Statute  Book  must  be  the  finally  decisive 
factor  in  securing  Ireland's  support  of  the  war, 
and  that  without  it  there  must  be  to  Nationalists 
some  aspect  of  cynicism  in  the  spectacle  of  Eng- 
land inviting  the  assistance  of  Ireland  in  a  war 
on  behalf  of  the  rights  of  small  nationalities.  It 
cannot  be  denied  that  there  was  much  disappoint- 
ment in  Ireland  over  the  fact  that  the  operation 
of  the  Home  Rule  Act  was  indefinitely  postponed ; 
but  in  general  Mr.  Redmond's  acceptance  of  the 
suspensory  arrangement  was  regarded  as  the  best 
course  possible  in  the  circumstances.  The  enact- 
ment of  Home  Rule  was  at  least  for  Nationalist 
Ireland  a  formal  recognition  by  England  of  Irish 
nationality,  and  that  recognition  was  of  capital 
value  in  securing  Ireland's  support  of  the  war. 

On  his  arrival  in  Ireland  Mr.  Redmond  lost  no 
time  in  expressing  in  plain  terms  his  conception 
of  Ireland's  duty  in  the  war.  He  arrived  from 
England  on  September  20th,  and  on  his  way  to 
his  home  at  Aughhavanagh  met  and  inspected 
some  companies  of  the  East  Wicklow  Brigade 
of  the  National  Volunteers.  He  made  a  short 
speech  to  them.  "The  interests  of  Ireland,  of  the 
whole  of  Ireland,"  he  said,  "are  at  stake  in  this 
war.  This  war  is  undertaken  in  defence  of  the 
highest  principles  of  religion  and  morality  and 
right,  and  it  would  be  a  disgrace  for  ever  to 

[224] 


THE  WAR  AND  REDMOND'S  CHOICE 

our  country,  a  reproach  to  her  manhood,  and  a 
denial  of  the  lessons  of  her  history  if  young  Ire- 
land confined  their  efforts  to  remaining  at  home 
to  defend  the  shores  of  Ireland  from  an  unlikely 
invasion,  and  shrinking  from  the  duty  of  prov- 
ing in  the  field  of  battle  that  gallantry  and  cour- 
age which  have  distinguished  their  race  all 
through  its  history.  I  say  to  you,  therefore,  your 
duty  is  two-fold.  I  am  glad  to  see  such  magnifi- 
cent material  for  soldiers  around  me,  and  I  say 
to  you:  go  on  drilling  and  make  yourselves  effi- 
cient for  the  work  and  then  assert  yourselves  as 
men,  not  only  in.  Ireland  itself,  but  wherever  the 
firing  line  extends,  in  defence  of  right,  of  free- 
dom and  religion,  in  this  war." 

In  this  impromptu  fashion — for  his  meeting 
with  the  Volunteers  was  accidental — Mr.  Red- 
mond began  the  vigorous  recruiting  campaign 
which,  together  with  the  members  of  his  party 
(with  some  few  exceptions,  notably  Mr.  Dillon) 
he  conducted  during  the  last  months  of  1914  and 
the  early  months  of  191 5.  The  young  men  of 
Ireland,  the  majority  of  whom  were  by  this  time 
enrolled  in  the  National  Volunteers,  responded  to 
his  appeal  in  large  numbers.  The  greatest  enthu- 
siasm attended  the  progress  of  the  recruiting 
campaign,  and  throughout  the  country  recruits 

[226] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

leaving  home  for  the  training  depots  were  played 
off  at  the  stations  by  the  Volunteer  bands. 

Perhaps  the  crowning  moment  of  Mr.  Red- 
mond's political  life  was  reached  on  September 
25th,  when  in  the  Dublin  Mansion  House  he  stood 
on  the  platform  beside  the  Prime  Minister  of  Eng- 
land, the  Lord  Lieutenant  and  the  Chief  Secre- 
tary for  Ireland,  and  a  number  of  leading  Irish- 
men, Unionist  and  Nationalist.  He  stood  there 
as  the  leader  of  an  Ireland  all  but  united  within 
herself,  and  for  the  first  time  in  centuries  one  in 
sympathy  and  spirit  with  Great  Britain — the  em- 
bodiment of  a  political  miracle.  "I  hope,"  he  said 
in  his  speech  following  Mr.  Asquith,  "that  no  peo- 
ple in  Great  Britain  will  imagine  that  because 
there  are  a  little  handful  of  pro-Germans  in  Ire- 
land, there  is  any  doubt  as  to  the  sentiment  of 
the  Nationalists  of  this  country."  "I  say  to  the 
Prime  Minister,  and  through  him  to  the  people 
of  Great  Britain,"  Mr.  Redmond  declared  in  con- 
clusion, "you  have  kept  faith  with  Ireland:  Ire- 
land will  keep  faith  with  you." 

In  his  speech  before  Mr.  Redmond  the  Prime 
Minister  had  half-promised  the  formation  of  a 
special  Irish  Army  Corps,  and  had  added  that  he 
trusted  the  Volunteers  would  become  a  per- 
manent, integral,  and  characteristic  part  of  the 
forces  of  the  Crown.    Mr.  Redmond  took  up  the 

[226] 


THE  WAR  AND  REDMOND'S  CHOICE 

point.  "I  was  delighted  to  hear  the  words  of  the 
Prime  Minister  with  reference  to  the  proposed 
treatment  of  Irish  recruits.  It  is  not  enough  to 
tell  us  that  there  are  Irish  regiments,  recruited  in 
Ireland,  and  inasmuch  as  they  are  Irish  they 
form  an  Irish  Army  Corps:  we  want  the  thing 
done  specifically,  an  Irish  Army  Corps  created 
so  that  their  deeds  of  valour  in  the  field  would  be 
able  to  be  garnered  by  us  as  one  of  the  treasures 
of  our  nation  in  the  future.  I  tell  the  Prime  Min- 
ister he  will  get  plenty  of  recruits,  and  of  the 
best  material.  In  my  judgment  the  body  of  Vol- 
unteers will  form  an  inexhaustible  source  of 
strength  to  the  new  Army  Corps  and  to  the  new 
Army  which  is  being  created." 

Mr.  Redmond's  speech  in  Wicklow  on  his  ar- 
rival in  Ireland,  however,  had  precipitated  a  split 
in  the  Volunteer  movement.  A  few  days  after 
the  delivery  of  that  speech  the  Dublin  newspapers 
published  a  "Manifesto  of  the  Irish  Volunteers," 
signed  by  Mr.  John  MacNeill  and  several  mem- 
bers of  the  original  Volunteer  Committee.  The 
signatories  to  the  manifesto  declared  that  'Ire- 
land could  not  with  honour  or  safety  take  part  in 
foreign  quarrels  other  than  through  the  action  of 
an  Irish  Parliament,"  and  repudiated  "the  claim 
of  any  man  to  offer  up  the  blood  and  lives  of  the 
sons  of  Ireland  while  no  National  Government 

[227] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

which  could  speak  and  act  for  the  people  of  Ire- 
land is  allow  to  exist." 

Mr.  Redmond  promptly  replied  to  this  chal- 
lenge with  an  announcement  that,  owing  to  the 
publication  of  the  manifesto  by  a  minority — it 
was,  of  course,  a  majority  of  the  original  mem- 
bers— he  had  taken  steps  to  request  the  Provi- 
sional Committee  to  meet  and  reorganise  the  gov- 
erning body  of  the  Volunteers.  The  Volunteers 
thus  split  into  two  bodies.  The  great  majority 
adhered  to  Mr.  Redmond's  leadership,  and  were 
afterwards  known  as  "National"  Volunteers. 
The  minority  which  seceded  under  Mr.  MacNeill 
were  known  as  "Irish"  Volunteers,  and  this  fac- 
tion, passing  under  the  control  of  the  revolution- 
aries, was  later  to  be  chiefly  responsible  for  the 
rising  of  1916. 

It  is  important  to  observe  here  that  this  split 
in  the  Volunteer  movement  might  have  been 
averted,  and  that  the  ultimate  responsibility  for 
it  belonged  not  to  Mr.  Redmond's  attitude  to- 
wards Irish  recruiting,  but  to  the  attitude  of 
the  War  Office  towards  Irish  recruiting,  the  at- 
titude which  Mr.  Lloyd  George  afterwards  de- 
scribed as  one  of  "malignant  stupidity."  Three 
months  before  the  war  Colonel  Moore,  the  In- 
spector-General of  the  Southern  Volunteers,  had 
proposed  the  extension  to  Ireland  of  the  Terri« 

[228] 


THE  WAR  AND  REDMOND'S  CHOICE 

torial  Act,  iinder  which  both  the  Ulster  and  the 
National  Volunteers  might  enlist,  and  had  dis- 
cussed the  question  on  these  lines  with  the  Brit- 
ish Secretary  for  War,  Colonel  Seely. 

When  Mr.  Redmond  made  his  famous  speech 
in  the  House  of  Commons  on  the  eve  of  the 
declaration  of  war  the  natural  solution  seemed 
to  be  the  embodiment  of  the  two  groups  of  Volun- 
teers as  Territorials  and  their  drafting  hence  for 
foreign  service.  Immediately  after  that  speech 
an  officer  on  the  Staff  of  the  Commander-in-Chief 
in  Ireland  proposed  a  scheme  by  which  all  the 
Volunteers  in  Ireland,  Unionist  and  Nationalist, 
should  receive  military  training.  He  calculated 
that  if  the  British  troops  were  removed,  as  Mr. 
Redmond  had  suggested,  there  would  be  room 
for  20,000  men  in  barracks  at  one  time,  and  these 
should,  after  two  months'  training,  be  passed 
on  to  the  standing  camps,  their  places  in  bar- 
racks being  taken  by  a  new  levy  of  20,000  Volun- 
teers. The  most  prominent  men  on  the  Volun- 
teer Committee — ^not  Mr.  Redmond's  nominees 
only,  but  also  Mr.  MacNeill  and  some  of  his 
friends — agreed  to  these  proposals,  and  Mr.  Mac- 
Neill accompanied  Colonel  Moore  to  the  Royal 
Hospital,  the  military  headquarters  in  Dublin, 
to  hear  them  discussed.  "I  want  to  lay  stress 
on  the  fact,"  said  Colonel  Moore  in  his  evidence 

[229] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND  / 

before  the  Rebellion  Commission,  "that  the  lead- 
ers of  the  Irish  Volunteers,  and  among  them  par- 
ticipators in  the  late  rebellion,  were  at  that  time 
willing  to  join  in  the  defence  of  the  Empire,  but 
were  refused  by  the  Government." 

Lord  Kitchener  refused  absolutely  to  take  ac- 
tion with  the  Volunteers  in  the  sense  suggested; 
and  that  refusal,  coupled  with  the  delay  in  the 
passing  of  the  Home  Rule  Bill,  at  the  outset 
damped  Irish  enthusiasm  for  the  war.  Colonel 
Moore,  himself  a  supporter  of  Mr.  Redmond's 
policy,  thus  described  the  situation  as  he  saw  it 
at  this  time  from  the  inside.  "When  at  last  the 
(Home  Rule)  Bill  was  signed,  the  enthusiasm 
was  gone,  and  the  fact  that  it  was  not  to  be  put 
into  force  until  after  the  war,  with  the  threat  of 
an  undefined  Amending  Bill,  left  the  uncertainty 
as  great  as  ever.  .  .  .  Nothing  but  the  enormous 
influence  of  Mr.  Redmond  and  the  leaders  of  the 
Irish  Party  prevented  a  universal  determined  agi- 
tation against  recruiting."  It  speaks  volumes  for 
the  authority  of  Mr.  Redmond  that  he  was  able, 
with  no  more  loss  than  was  involved  in  the  seces- 
sion of  the  minority  of  the  Volunteers  under  Mr. 
MacNeill  and  his  friends,  to  make  his  policy  of 
support  of  the  war  so  largely  effective. 

The  difficulties  which  Mr.  Redmond  had  to 
face,  however  were  only  beginning.     His  pro- 

[230] 


THE  WAR  AND  REDMOND'S  CHOICE 

posal  to  embody  the  Volunteers  as  Territorials 
was  rejected  in  the  case  of  the  National  Volun- 
teers, but  in  effect,  though  not  in  form,  was  ac- 
cepted in  that  of  the  Ulster  Volunteers.  It  was 
months  before  Mr.  Redmond  could  prevail  on 
the  War  Office  to  assent  to  the  formation  of  a 
distinctive  Irish  Division,  and  when  it  was  at 
last  in  course  of  formation  he  encountered  at 
every  turn  official  obstacles  to  his  attempt  to  base 
the  appeal  to  national  sentiment  on  a  revival  of 
the  memories  of  the  historic  "Irish  Brigade," 
while  the  Division  was  very  largely  officered  by 
Unionists  and  Protestants.  The  **Curragh  Mu- 
tiny" was  by  no  means  forgotten  in  Ireland ;  and 
the  suspicion  that,  for  political  reasons,  influence 
was  at  work  in  the  War  Office  to  discourage  too 
large  a  recruitment  from  Nationalist  Ireland  was 
increased  by  the  very  different  treatment  of  the 
Ulster  Volunteers. 

In  this  case  the  War  Office  responded  with 
alacrity  to  Sir  Edward  Carson's  proposal  for 
the  formation  of  a  distinctive  Ulster  Division  of 
the  New  Army.  The  Ulster  Division  was  com- 
posed almost  wholly  of  Carsonite  Volunteers  and 
their  sympathisers,  and  it  was  in  fact  a  homoge- 
neous political  body.  Several  of  the  men  who  had 
been  engaged  in  the  "grave  and  unprecedented 
outrage"  at  Larne  now  occupied  comfortable  war 

[231] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

situations.  The  Commander  of  the  Ulster  Volun- 
teers avowed  that  his  men,  now  ''thoroughly 
trained  and  with  vast  experience  of  war/'  would 
have  no  difficulty  after  the  war  in  relegating 
Home  Rule  to  the  Devil.  Sir  Edward  Carson 
and  Mr.  Bonar  Law,  the  Leader  of  the  Unionist 
Opposition,  in  Belfast  in  the  late  autumn  of  1914, 
announced  their  intention  after  the  war  to  re- 
peal the  Home  Rule  Act  so  far  as  Ulster  was 
concerned.  Mr.  Bonar  Law  refused  to  stand  on 
the  same  platform  with  Mr.  Redmond  on  the 
occasion  of  Mr.  Asquith's  visit  to  Dublin;  and 
Sir  Edward  Carson  later  ostentatiously  declined 
an  invitation  to  join  with  Mr.  Redmond  in  ad- 
dressing a  recruiting  meeting  at  Newry. 

In  May,  191 5,  both  Sir  Edward  Carson  and 
Mr.  Bonar  Law  were  included  in  the  first  Coali- 
tion Government  formed  by  Mr.  Asquith.  Mr. 
Redmond  was  offered  a  seat  in  the  new  Cabinet 
together  with  Sir  Edward  Carson.  He  refused 
it,  as  he  was  bound  to  refuse  it,  in  accordance 
with  the  old  Parnellite  tradition  which  forbade 
any  member  of  the  Irish  Party  to  accept  posi- 
tions in  or  under  the  Government.  He  would 
have  appreciated  the  honour  more  had  he  not 
been  aware  that  the  Government  knew  that  he 
must  refuse  it,  and  that  the  mere  offer  of  inclu- 
sion to  himself  could  not  in  the  circumstances 

[232] 


THE  WAR  AND  REDMOND'S  CHOICE 

offset  the  inevitable  consequences  in  Ireland  of 
the  inclusion  of  Sir  Edward  Carson.  Mr.  Red- 
mond, together  with  Mr.  Dillon,  in  refusing  the 
offer  wrote  letters  to  Mr.  Asquith  warning  him 
in  the  strongest  possible  terms  of  the  effect  of 
bringing  Sir  Edward  Carson  into  the  Cabinet. 
The  net  result  was  that  Sir  Edward  Carson  was 
brought  into  the  Cabinet  and  Mr.  Redmond  was 
not ;  and  from  that  event  dated  the  change  in  the 
spirit  of  Ireland. 

''How  can  any  one  in  this  House,"  asked  Mr. 
Dillon  in  the  House  of  Commons  subsequently, 
"blame  the  Irish  people  if  they  distrusted  the 
Government?  Home  Rule  was  going  to  be 
treated  as  'a  scrap  of  paper*  and  repealed  when 
the  war  was  over;  and  from  that  hour  our  men 
left  us  by  tens  of  thousands.  In  spite  of  all  we 
(Mr.  Redmond  and  his  colleagues)  could  do  we 
were  met  by  the  statement  that  England  always 
broke  her  word  to  us,  and  'how  can  you  tell  us 
for  a  single  moment  that  she  is  going  to  keep 
this  treaty  with  Ireland  when  she  brings  into  her 
Cabinet  a  man  who  has  given  public  notice  that 
he  will  rebel  again  the  moment  the  war  is  over 
and  hold  his  rifles  for  the  purpose  of  tearing  the 
Home  Rule  Act  to  pieces  and  treating  it  as  "a 
scrap  of  paper"?'  " 

From  May,  19 15,  indeed,  Mr.  Redmond  be- 
[28S] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

gan  to  fight  a  losing  battle  in  Ireland.  He  la- 
boured manfully  throughout  the  following  year 
to  keep  Ireland  behind  him  in  his  war  policy;  but 
the  circumstances  in  which,  to  use  the  words  that 
he  employed  afterwards  himself,  he  had  been 
"let  down  and  betrayed"  by  the  Government  were 
too  much  for  him.  In  the  second  half  of  191 5 
the  number  of  recruits  fell  away  in  an  astonish- 
ing degree,  and  simultaneously  the  Irish  Volun- 
teers gained  a  great  accession  of  strength.  The 
National  Volunteers,  under  Mr.  Redmond's  con- 
trol, at  the  same  time  were  allowed — largely  by 
force  of  circumstances,  but  not  without  his  own 
tacit  approval — to  fall  into  decay.  The  question 
of  the  application  of  conscription  in  the  autumn 
of  191 5  gave  a  great  stimulus  to  the  Volunteer 
movement.  The  representations  of  Mr.  Red- 
mond and  Mr.  Dillon  succeeded  in  securing  the 
exclusion  of  Ireland  first  from  the  Registration 
Act  and  then  from  the  Military  Service  Act,  and 
this  success  for  a  time  steadied  his  hold  on  the 
country. 

The  attitude  of  Mr.  Redmond  and  Mr.  Dillon 
towards  the  vigorous  propaganda  conducted  by 
Sinn  Fein  during  the  latter  part  of  19 15  and  the 
early  part  of  1916  was  the  same;  but  their  mo- 
tives were  entirely  dififerent.  Both  opposed  the 
repressive  measures  fitfully  and  ineffectively  un- 

[234] 


THE  WAR  AND  REDMOND'S  CHOICE 

dertaken  by  the  Irish  Executive.  Mr.  Dillon, 
however,  opposed  them  because  he  felt  that  the 
revolutionary  movement  was  so  strong  that  re- 
pression could  only  precipitate  an  outbreak.  Mr. 
Redmond,  on  the  other  hand,  opposed  them  be- 
cause he  felt  that  the  revolutionary  movement 
was  weak  enough  to  be  ignored  with  safety.  Of 
the  two  Mr.  Redmond  was  certainly  the  more 
right.  As  the  strong  reaction  of  public  opinion 
which  immediately  followed  the  rising  of  Easter, 
19 1 6,  was  to  show,  the  revolutionary  party  in 
Ireland  was  in  itself  of  insignificant  proportions 
and  had  little  following  among  the  Irish  people. 
At  the  same  time  there  is  no  question  that  Mr. 
Redmond  did  underestimate  the  chances  of  an 
outbreak. 

It  was  the  aftermath  of  the  rising  which  large- 
ly swept  away  in  a  storm  of  passion  Mr.  Red- 
mond's authority  in  the  country;  but  before  the 
rising  it  was  rather  opposition  other  than  revo- 
lutionary— though  strengthened  indirectly  by  the 
revolutionary  propaganda  in  the  background — 
which  seemed  to  menace  his  position.  As  the 
autumn  of  191 5  went  on  many  Irishmen,  strong- 
ly inclined  towards  the  Allied  cause  and  hitherto 
numbered  among  Mr.  Redmond's  supporters,  be- 
gan to  think  that  an  end  should  be  made  of  the 
equivocal  situation  in  which  the  Nationalist  lead- 

[236] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

ers  professed  unimpaired  support  of  the  war 
while  an  obviously  discontented  Ireland  was 
more  and  more  falling  away  from  support  of  the 
war.  The  remedy  suggested  was  the  immediate 
operation  of  Home  Rule,  coupled  with  a  frank  as- 
sertion of  Ireland's  claim,  as  a  poor  and  depopu- 
lated country,  to  special  treatment  in  the  mat- 
ter of  taxation  and  recruitment. 

By  the  wording  of  the  Suspensory  Act  of  Sep- 
tember, 19 14,  the  operation  of  the  Home  Rule 
Act  was  postponed  for  a  year.  When  Septem- 
ber, 19 1 5,  arrived  the  Government  sought  and 
obtained  an  Order  in  Council  for  a  further  post- 
ponement until  March,  1916.  A  strong  move- 
ment grew  up  in  favour  of  immediate  Home 
Rule.  Simultaneously  a  movement  of  protest 
grew  up  against  the  heavy  burden  which  war  tax- 
ation imposed  on  Ireland,  especially  by  the  Bud- 
get introduced  in  the  early  months  of  19 16.  The 
financial  changes  of  the  Home  Rule  Act  were 
based  on  the  allegation  of  Irish  insolvency;  but 
with  the  increase  of  taxation  since  the  outbreak 
of  war  Ireland  was  now  paying  for  Irish  expen- 
diture to  the  full,  and  in  addition  £5,000,000  an- 
nually as  an  Imperial  contribution ;  moreover,  the 
proportion  of  taxable  income  now  taken  from 
Ireland  was  more  than  twice  that  taken  from 
Great  Britain,  nor  did  the  money  go,  as  it  largely 

[236] 


THE  WAR  AND  REDMOND'S  CHOICE 

went  in  Great  Britain,  to  the  stimulation  of  war 
industries. 

In  these  circumstances  Mr.  Redmond  was 
strongly  urged  not  only  by  his  avowed  critics,  but 
also  by  some  of  his  own  supporters,  to  do  two 
things.  First,  he  should  press  for  the  operation 
of  the  Home  Rule  Act  in  March,  1916,  when  the 
second  period  of  postponement  arrived;  next,  he 
should  secure  for  Ireland  special  treatment  in 
the  matter  of  taxation  as  he  had  secured  it  in 
the  case  of  recruitment,  attack  the  new  Budget, 
and,  if  necessary,  withdraw  the  support  of  his 
party  from  the  Government.  The  pressure  in  both 
these  directions  was  strong  upon  Mr.  Redmond. 
Certainly  his  position  in  Ireland  was  becoming 
less  secure.  He  was  perfectly  well  aware  that 
he  could  do  much  to  restore  it  by  pressing  for  the 
immediate  operation  of  the  Home  Rule  Act,  or 
even  to  some  extent  by  attacking  the  Budget. 
But  he  refused  to  do  either. 

He  had  to  make  a  hard  choice  between  an 
alienation  of  English  sympathy  and  a  certain  loss 
of  Irish  confidence.  Faithful  to  the  first  tenet  of 
his  political  creed  that  the  realisation  of  Ireland's 
aspirations  depended  on  maintaining  the  sym- 
pathy and  support  of  the  British  democracy,  and, 
moreover,  himself  ardently  for  the  war  and  sin- 
cerely desirous  not  to  embarrass  the  Government 

[287] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

in  its  conduct,  he  chose  the  former  course.  So 
in  March,  19 16,  the  operation  of  the  Home  Rule 
Act  was  again  postponed — this  time  until  the  end 
of  the  war — without  protest  from  him. 

It  is  idle  to  speculate  how  this  equivocal  situa- 
tion would  have  ended;  for  in  the  following 
month  it  was  swept  away  by  the  rising  and  the 
whole  character  of  the  Irish  question  was  radi- 
cally transformed.  This  is  not  the  place  in  which 
to  deal  at  length  with  that  tragic  episode  in  re- 
cent Irish  history:  profoundly  as  it  bears  upon 
the  life  of  Mr.  Redmond,  the  Rebellion  of  Easter 
Week  itself  may  be  reviewed  very  briefly.  It 
was  commonly  described  afterwards  as  the  Sinn 
Fein  Rebellion ;  but  such  a  description  has  at  best 
a  sort  of  ex  post  facto  justification.  Though  as  a 
result  of  it — or  rather  of  the  circumstances  of  its 
suppression — Sinn  Fein  acquired  an  enormously 
enhanced  popularity,  and  after  the  event  every 
malcontent  in  Ireland  rallied  round  the  Sinn  Fein 
banner,  Sinn  Fein  itself  had  no  direct  responsi- 
bility for  the  rising.  By  a  curious,  but  easily 
explicable  paradox,  while  the  rising  of  1916  was 
the  making  of  Sinn  Fein,  Sinn  Fein  did  not  make 
the  rising,  except  in  so  far  as  its  somewhat  doc- 
trinaire philosophy  of  secession  contributed  to 
creating  the  explosive  atmosphere  in  which  the 

[238] 


THE  WAR  AND  REDMOND'S  CHOICE 

outbreak  came — and  this  contribution  was  rela- 
tively not  very  large. 

The  rising  was  the  direct  product  of  three  fac- 
tors. First,  and  incomparably  most  important, 
was  the  social  discontent  bred  in  the  ghastly 
slums  of  Dublin,  fanned  to  desperation  by  the 
breaking  of  the  great  strike  of  191 3,  and  organ- 
ised in  the  "Citizen  Army"  commanded  by  James 
Connolly,  Larkin's  successor  and  the  real  motive 
force  in  the  rising.  At  bottom  the  outbreak  was 
an  attempt  rather  at  social  than  at  political  revo- 
lution. The  second  factor  was  a  part  of  that 
small  body  of  the  National  Volunteers,  formed  in 
response  to  the  Ulster  Volunteer  movement, 
which  as  the  "Irish"  Volunteers  had  seceded 
under  Mr.  MacNeill's  leadership  from  allegiance 
to  Mr.  Redmond.  The  third  factor,  behind  and 
acting  upon  these  two  first  factors,  was  that  ir- 
reconcilable remnant  of  the  physical  force  move- 
ment surviving  in  the  revolutionary  secret  society 
known  as  the  Irish  Republican  Brotherhood,  in 
touch  with  kindred  spirits  of  extremism  in  the 
Clan-na-Gael  in  the  United  States,  and  through 
them  supplied  by  Roger  Casement  with  a  nexus 
with  Germany. 

Perhaps  the  further  suspension  of  the  Home 
Rule  Act  contributed  towards  precipitating  the 
insurrection ;  certainly  the  knowledge  that  the  au- 

[239] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

thorities  were  contemplating  the  forcible  suppres- 
sion of  the  organisation  did  much  to  precipitate 
it.  In  the  end  the  rising  was  a  hasty  and  ill-con- 
ceived adventure.  It  was  the  lack  of  premedita- 
tion in  the  launching  of  the  enterprise  which  se- 
cured its  first  facile  success,  and  the  same  cause 
produced  its  early  and  complete  collapse.  Out- 
side of  Dublin  a  few  sporadic,  uncoordinated 
and  ineffective  outbreaks  were  easily  suppressed. 
In  Dublin  the  insurgents  were  able  to  seize  the 
centre  of  the  city,  thanks  largely  to  the  fact  that 
the  rising  took  the  authorities  completely  by  sur- 
prise: the  majority  of  the  officers  of  the  garri- 
son, in  fact,  were  absent  at  a  race-meeting  in  the 
vicinity.  The  insurgents  maintained  their  hold 
upon  the  centre  of  the  city  precariously  and  with 
increasing  loss  until  the  end  of  the  week,  when 
they — numbering  perhaps  two  thousand  men  at 
most — surrendered  unconditionally,  and  were  dis- 
armed and  imprisoned. 

Strategically  the  rising  was  serious,  or  rather 
might  have  been  if  the  insurgent  plans  had  not 
been  hopelessly  disarranged  by  the  miscarriage 
of  the  Casement  expedition.  Politically  it  was,  in 
itself,  trivial.  It  failed  so  early  and  so  completely 
for  the  precise  reason,  very  largely,  that  the  great 
mass  of  the  Irish  people  did  not  approve  it  or 
support  it.    While  there  were  many  who  admired 

[240] 


THE  WAR  AND  REDMOND'S  CHOICE 

the  courage  of  the  enterprise,  its  collapse  left 
those  who  had  taken  part  in  it  with — immediately 
— no  open  supporters  in  the  vocal  body  of  the 
Irish  people. 

Mr.  Redmond  was  not  in  Ireland  at  the  time  of 
the  rising,  which  occurred  while  Parliament  was 
in  session.  Mr.  Dillon,  his  chief  colleague  in  the 
Irish  Party,  happened  to  be  at  his  house  in  Dub- 
lin, situated  in  a  locality  close  to  the  centre  of 
the  insurgent  operations.  Mr.  Dillon  therefore 
had  better  opportunity  than  Mr.  Redmond  for 
appreciating  the  situation  on  the  spot,  and  it  was 
probably  for  this  reason  that  Mr.  Redmond  left 
to  him  the  main  part  of  the  Nationalist  share  in 
the  Parliamentary  debates  on  the  insurrection. 

Mr.  Redmond's  chief  preoccupation  at  the  mo- 
ment was  not  so  much  its  effect  in  Ireland  as  its 
effect  on  English  public  opinion.  He  expressed 
afterwards  his  fear  that  the  rising  would  provoke 
in  England  an  immediate  demand  for  the  repeal 
of  the  Home  Rule  Act.  He  lost  no  time  in  de- 
fining his  own  position  towards  it  in  a  state- 
ment issued  to  the  Press.  "My  first  feeling,"  he 
said,  "on  hearing  of  this  insane  movement  was 
one  of  horror,  discouragement,  almost  despair.  I 
asked  myself  whether  Ireland,  as  so  often  before 
in  her  tragic  history,  was  to  dash  the  cup  of 
liberty  from  her  lips.     Was  the  insanity  of  a 

[241][ 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

small  section  of  her  people  once  again  to  turn  all 
her  marvellous  victories  of  the  last  few  years  into 
irreparable  defeat  and  to  send  her  back  on  the 
very  eve  of  her  final  recognition  as  a  free  nation 
into  another  long  night  of  slavery,  incalculable 
suffering,  weary  and  uncertain  struggle?" 

He  went  on  to  say  that  when  the  war  came  Ire- 
land made  a  choice  which  was  inevitable  if  she 
was  to  be  true  to  all  the  principles  which  she  had 
held  through  all  her  history,  and  which  she  had 
just  so  completely  vindicated  on  her  own  soil — 
namely,  the  rights  of  small  nations,  the  sacred 
principle  of  nationality,  liberty,  and  democracy. 
This  was  the  opinion  of  the  overwhelming  ma- 
jority of  the  Irish  people,  the  opinion  which  thou- 
sands of  Irish  soldiers  had  sealed  with  their  blood 
by  dying  in  the  cause  of  the  liberty  of  Ireland 
and  of  the  world.  The  doctrine  that  the  policy  of 
Ireland  must  be  decided  by  Ireland  herself  had 
been  contested  ''only  by  the  very  same  men  who 
to-day  have  tried  to  make  Ireland  the  cat's-paw 
of  Germany.  In  all  our  long  and  successful 
struggle  to  obtain  Home  Rule  we  have  been 
thwarted  and  opposed  by  that  same  section.  We 
have  won  Home  Rule  not  through  them,  but  in 
spite  of  them.  This  wicked  move  of  theirs  was 
their  last  blow  at  Home  Rule.    It  was  not  half  so 

[242] 


THE  WAR  AND  REDMOND'S  CHOICE 

much  treason  to  the  cause  of  the  Allies  as  treason 
to  the  cause  of  Home  Rule. 

"This  attempted  deadly  blow  at  Home  Rule 
carried  on  through  this  section,"  Mr.  Redmond 
proceeded,  "is  made  the  more  wicked  and  the 
more  insolent  by  this  fact,  that  Germany  plotted 
it,  Germany  organised  it,  Germany  paid  for  it. 
So  far  as  Germany's  share  in  it  is  concerned,  it 
was  a  German  invasion  of  Ireland,  as  brutal,  as 
selfish,  as  cynical  as  Germany's  invasion  of  Bel- 
gium. Blood  has  been  shed,  and  if  Ireland  has 
not  been  reduced  to  the  same  horrors  as  Belgium, 
with  her  starving  people,  her  massacred  priests, 
her  violated  convents,  it  is  not  the  fault  of  Ger- 
many. And  a  final  aggravation  of  the  movement 
is  this.  The  misguided  and  insane  young  men  in 
Ireland  have  risked,  and  some  of  them  have  lost, 
their  lives.  But  what  am  I  to  say  of  those  men 
who  have  sent  them  into  this  insane  anti-patriotic 
movement  while  they  have  remained  in  the  safe 
remoteness  of  American  cities  ?  I  might  add  that 
this  movement  has  been  set  in  motion  by  this 
same  class  of  men  at  the  very  moment  when 
America  is  demanding  reparation  for  the  blood  of 
innocent  American  men  and  women  and  children 
shed  by  Germany,  and  thus  are  guilty  of  double 
treason — treason  to  the  generous  land  that  re- 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

ceived  them  as  well  as  to  the  land  that  gave  them 
birth." 

Finally  Mr.  Redmond  expressed  his  confidence 
as  to  the  final  result.  "I  do  not  believe  that  this 
wicked  and  insane  movement  will  achieve  its  ends. 
The  German  plot  has  failed.  The  majority  of  the 
people  of  Ireland  retain  their  calmness,  fortitude 
and  unity.  They  abhor  this  attack  on  their  in- 
terests, their  rights,  their  hopes,  their  principles. 
Home  Rule  has  not  been  destroyed.  It  remains 
indestructible." 

This  statement  of  Mr.  Redmond's  was  issued 
on  May  3rd.  On  the  following  day  the  Chief 
Secretary  for  Ireland,  Mr.  Birrell,  announced  his 
resignation  in  the  House  of  Commons;  and  Mr. 
Redmond  said  that  he  felt  he  had  incurred  some 
share  of  the  blame  which  Mr.  Birrell  had  laid  at 
his  own  door,  because  he  (Mr.  Redmond)  had  en- 
tirely agreed  with  Mr.  Birrell's  view  that  the  dan- 
ger of  an  outbreak  of  this  kind  was  not  a  real  one, 
and  what  he  had  said  might  have  influenced  the 
Chief  Secretary  in  his  management  of  Irish  af- 
fairs. Mr.  Redmond  added  that  it  was  the  duty 
of  the  Government  to  put  down  the  outbreak  with 
firmness;  but  he  begged  the  Government  not  to 
show  undue  harshness  or  severity  to  the  great 
masses  of  those  implicated,  on  whose  shoulders 

[244] 


THE  WAR  AND  REDMOND'S  CHOICE 

there  lay  gnilt  far  different  from  that  which  lay 
on  the  instigators  and  promoters. 

A  few  days  later  Mr.  Redmond  called  the  Gov- 
ernment's attention  to  the  fact  that  the  execu- 
tions of  insurgent  leaders  which  had  taken  place 
in  Dublin  had  produced  popular  resentment  in 
Ireland,  and  asked  that  clemency  should  be  ex- 
tended to  the  other  persons  involved,  in  view  of 
the  precedent  set  by  General  Botha  in  South  Af- 
rica, of  the  complete  restoration  of  order  in  Ire- 
land, and  of  the  avowed  condemnation  of  the 
movement  by  the  overwhelming  majority  of  the 
people  in  Ireland.  Both  publicly  and  privately  Mr. 
Redmond  worked  hard  to  secure  clemency  for  the 
leaders  of  the  rising,  but  he  was  unable  to  induce 
the  Government  to  restrain  Sir  John  Maxwell's 
executions  until  a  considerable  number  had  been 
shot. 

At  this  time  a  renewed  Unionist  agitation  was 
set  on  foot  for  the  extension  of  conscription  to 
Ireland.  In  a  debate  on  an  amendment  to  the 
Military  Service  Bill  with  this  object  Mr.  Red- 
mond expressed  the  profound  conviction  that,  if 
he  and  his  friends  had  had  the  power  and  the  re- 
sponsibility of  the  Government  of  this  country 
during  the  past  two  years,  when  their  opinions 
had  been  overborne  and  their  suggestions  rejected 
by  the  Government,  the  rising  would  never  have 

[«45] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

occurred.  With  regard  to  conscription,  he 
claimed  from  every  member  in  the  House  an  ad- 
mission that,  in  opposing  it,  he  was  not  animated 
by  any  desire  to  prevent  getting  men  for  the 
Army,  because  he  had  done  his  best.  Ireland,  he 
asserted,  had  done  well.  She  had  over  I50,C)CX) 
with  the  Colours  at  the  present  time  who  had 
shown  a  bravery  that  had  covered  them  with 
glory,  and  it  was  an  ungenerous  thing  to  attempt 
to  taunt  Ireland  with  not  having  done  her  duty  in 
the  war.  He  was  convinced  that  the  worst  way 
that  could  now  be  attempted  to  get  men  was  by 
enforcing  conscription  in  Ireland.  He  had  no 
hesitation  in  saying  that,  after  recent  events  in 
Ireland,  it  would  in  his  deliberate  opinion  be  not 
only  a  wrong  thing  and  an  unwise  thing,  but  well- 
nigh  an  insane  thing,  to  attempt  to  enforce  con- 
scription. 

In  the  same  speech,  in  response  to  an  over- 
ture from  Sir  John  Lonsdale,  an  Ulster  Unionist 
member,  Mr.  Redmond  declared  that  "Heaven 
knows,  there  is  no  man  in  this  House  would  be 
more  anxious  to  respond  to  an  appeal  from  him 
(Sir  John  Lonsdale)  and  his  friends."  "I  have 
hoped  against  hope,"  said  Mr.  Redmond  at  the 
end  of  his  speech,  "and  I  hope  still  in  the  dark 
and  miserable  circumstances  of  the  moment,  that 
we  may  yet  come  together.    Aye,  and  before  very 

[246] 


THE  WAR  AND  REDMOND'S  CHOICE 

long  I  hope  with  all  my  heart  that  out  of  these 
miseries  in  Ireland,  by  taking  a  large  and  gener- 
ous view,  by  taking  something  like  a  statesman- 
like view  and  a  far-reaching  view  of  the  highest 
interests  of  the  Empire,  we  may  be  able  out  of 
this  turmoil  and  tragedy  to  evolve  some  means  of 
putting  an  end  to  these  differences,  so  that  we 
may  have  a  united  Ireland  and  an  Ireland  where 
the  people  themselves  will  have  both  responsibil- 
ity and  the  power  of  Government."  The  first  at- 
tempt to  turn  the  rising  to  good  account  by  evolv- 
ing an  Irish  settlement  followed  immediately 
upon  this  speech  of  Mr.  Redmond's. 


[2471 


CHAPTER  X 


A    CLOUDED   ENDING 


ON  May  nth,  1916,  after  a  speech  by  Mr. 
Dillon  in  which  in  vehement  language  he 
condemned  the  regime  of  martial  law  in  Ireland, 
Mr.  Asquith,  the  Prime  Minister,  announced  his 
intention  of  proceeding  immediately  to  Ireland 
for  the  purpose  of  consulting  at  first  hand  with 
the  military  authorities,  and  "arriving,  if  possible, 
at  some  arrangement  for  the  future  which  will 
commend  itself  to  the  general  consent  of  Irish- 
men of  all  parties."  He  remained  in  Ireland 
about  a  week,  during  which  time  he  visited  Bel- 
fast and  Cork,  and  conferred  with  representa- 
tives of  various  Irish  parties,  not  excluding  the 
insurgent  prisoners  in  Dublin.  The  Prime  Min- 
ister reported  the  result  of  his  Irish  mission  to 
the  House  of  Commons  on  May  24th.  It  had  left, 
he  said,  "two  main  dominant  impressions"  on  his 
mind.  "The  first  was  the  break-down  of  the  ex- 
isting machinery  of  the  Irish  Government,  and 

[248] 


A  CLOUDED  ENDING 

the  next  was  the  strength  and  depth,  and  I  might 
almost  say,  without  exaggeration,  the  universality 
of  the  feeling  in  Ireland  that  we  have  now  a 
unique  opportunity  for  a  new  departure  for  a  set- 
tlement of  outstanding  problems,  and  for  a  gen- 
eral and  combined  effort  to  obtain  agreement  as  to 
the  way  in  which  the  government  of  Ireland 
should  in  future  be  carried  on." 

There  was  the  most  serious  prospect  that,  un- 
less Irish  discontent  were  immediately  appeased, 
the  whole  basis  of  the  relations  on  which  the 
Anglo-Irish  quarrel  had  stood  since  the  days  of 
Parnell  would  be  swept  away,  and  that  Irish  dis- 
content would  be  diverted  back  again  from  con- 
stitutional to  revolutionary  channels.  In  all  her 
political  history  Ireland  has  seen  no  more  re- 
markable revulsion  of  political  opinion  than  that 
which  followed  the  rising  of  1916,  and  it  was  ap- 
parent that  the  revulsion  of  feeling  could  be 
stayed  only  by  an  immediate  settlement. 

The  insurrection,  as  we  have  seen,  was  not  ap- 
proved by  the  great  mass  of  the  Irish  people.  Mr. 
Redmond's  outspoken  condemnation  of  it  quoted 
in  the  last  chapter  was  immediately  followed  by 
resolutions  of  condemnation  from  public  bodies 
all  over  Ireland.  Nevertheless  a  very  short  time 
after  the  outbreak  a  large  part,  perhaps  a  major- 
ity, of  the  Irish  people  gloried  in  avowing  them- 

[«49J 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

selves  Sinn  Fein.  This  reaction  of  Irish  senti- 
ment dated  from  the  wholesale  executions  of  in- 
surgent leaders,  accompanied  by  penal  servitude 
sentences  by  the  score  and  arrests  and  deporta- 
tions by  the  hundred  which  followed  the  insurrec- 
tion and  against  which  Mr.  Redmond  and  his  col- 
leagues had  protested  with  their  utmost  strength. 
The  leaders  of  the  rising  must  in  any  case,  wheth- 
er their  enterprise  was  approved  or  disapproved, 
have  taken  a  natural  place  in  the  popular  imag- 
ination in  the  illustrious  succession  of  Ireland's 
historic  "rebels" ;  and  the  "Irish  Revival"  of  Mr. 
Redmond's  life-time  had  contributed  powerfully 
towards  re-creating  the  romantic  glamour  which 
surrounded  "the  memory  of  the  dead." 

The  men  of  191 6,  therefore,  must  in  any  case 
have  commanded  a  certain  sentimental  sympathy 
in  the  mass  of  the  Irish  people.  Probably  but  for 
their  execution  that  sympathy  would  have  re- 
mained sentimental  and  no  more.  But  the  exac- 
tion from  them  of  the  capital  penalty  for  their 
offence  at  once  replaced  that  appeal  to  reason  on 
which  Mr.  Redmond  based  his  policy  with  an 
unmistakable  appeal  to  sentiment.  It  was 
watched  by  the  Irish  people,  as  a  commentator  en- 
tirely unsympathetic  with  the  insurrection  wrote 
at  the  time,  "with  something  of  the  feeling  of 
helpless  rage  with  which  one  would  watch  a 

[250] 


A  CLOUDED  ENDING 

stream  of  blood  dripping  from  under  a  closed 
door."  That  old  suspicion  and  dislike  of  the 
British  Army  as  an  instrument  of  oppression 
which  the  war  seemed  to  have  destroyed  gained, 
from  these  events  and  from  certain  unfortunate 
incidents  connected  with  the  actual  suppression  of 
the  rising,  a  new  lease  of  bitter  life.  The  insur- 
gent leaders,  without  any  wide  public  influence  in 
their  lives,  became  in  their  death  popular  heroes 
and  martyrs.  The  old  and  deep,  but  hitherto  sub- 
merged, emotions  of  Nationalist  Ireland — sub- 
merged very  largely  in  consequence  of  Mr.  Red- 
mond's leadership — resumed  full  sway  of  the  na- 
tional imagination  and  jostled  out  the  novel  and 
more  superficial  emotions  induced  by  the  war  and 
Ireland's  earlier  participation  in  it.  Throughout 
the  country  a  wave  of  emotion  swept  great  num- 
bers of  Nationalists  into  the  republican  camp. 
^  This  revulsion  of  feeling  naturally  grouped  it- 
self about  the  political  theory  known  as  Sinn  Fein. 
As  has  been  said  earlier,  Sinn  Fein  did  not  make 
the  rising ;  but  the  rising  made  Sinn  Fein.  Before 
the  insurrection  that  political  philosophy  was 
largely  doctrinaire;  it  could  not  acquire  the  char- 
acter of  agitation..  But  now  the  outbreak  had  be- 
come loosely  associated  in  the  public  mind  with 
Sinn  Fein;  the  Sinn  Fein  idea  was  "in  the  air" ; 
and  the  revulsion  of  popular  feeling  naturally 

[«61] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

grouped  itself  about  it.  Thus  Sinn  Fein — though 
in  the  earlier  part  of  1916  still  scarcely  more  than 
a  stream  of  tendency — had  become  a  latent  power 
in  the  land :  a  power  now  gravely  threatening  Mr. 
Redmond's  hitherto  secure  ascendency. 

These  were  the  circumstances  in  which  the  new 
effort  for  a  settlement  was  made.  It  was  obvious 
that  its  success  would  stay  the  drift  from  consti- 
tutionalism to  revolution  in  Ireland  and  confirm 
Mr.  Redmond's  position.  It  was  equally  obvious 
that  its  failure  would  make  the  Irish  situation 
worse  and  still  further  weaken  Mr.  Redmond's 
position.  The  effort  failed ;  and  the  circumstances 
in  which  it  failed  aggravated  the  detrimental  con- 
sequences of  its  failure. 

The  basis  on  which  Mr.  Lloyd  George  was  com- 
missioned by  the  Cabinet  to  attempt  to  negotiate 
a  settlement  was  that  the  Home  Rule  Act  should 
be  brought  into  immediate  operation,  but  that  the 
six  Ulster  counties  of  Down,  Antrim,  Derry,  Ar- 
magh, Fermanagh,  and  Tyrone  should  be  exclud- 
ed from  its  scope.  This  arrangement  was  to  con- 
tinue for  the  period  of  the  war  and  a  year  after- 
wards, when  it  should  be  brought  under  review 
again. 

The  first  body  in  Ireland  to  deliberate  on  the 
terms  of  the  proposed  settlement — which  had 
been  conveyed  privately  to  Mr.  Redmond  and  Sir 


A  CLOUDED  ENDING 

Edward  Carson  and  were  not  at  this  time  made 
public  except  in  their  broadest  outline — was  the 
Ulster  Unionist  Council,  which  met  in  Belfast 
under  the  presidency  of  Sir  Edward  Carson  on 
June  1 2th.  Contrary  to  the  general  expectation 
the  Ulster  Unionist  Council  accepted  the  proposed 
settlement.  Its  assent  was  secured  largely  by  the 
aid  of  a  plea  of  Imperial  necessity  for  an  Irish  set- 
tlement which  Mr.  Lloyd  George  had  invoked. 
This  was  understood  to  concern  the  state  of  Irish- 
American  opinion  and  the  safe  output  and  transit 
of  munitions  of  war.  The  Ulster  Unionist  Coun- 
cil, however,  agreed  to  the  terms  proposed  on  the 
strict  understanding  that  the  exclusion  of  the  six 
counties  was  to  be  "definite." 

The  decision  of  the  Ulster  Unionists  was  fol- 
lowed by  a  Convention  of  the  Nationalists  of  Ul- 
ster, held  in  Belfast  on  June  23rd.  It  was  by  this 
time  apparent  that  any  proposal  involving  the 
"partition"  of  Ireland  was  extremely  unpopular 
in  Nationalist  Ireland.  A  number  of  public 
bodies  had  protested  against  the  proposed  settle- 
ment. The  Roman  Catholic  Hierarchy  in  Ulster 
was  almost  solidly  opposed  to  it.  Mr.  Redmond, 
however,  exerted  all  his  influence  to  secure  assent 
to  the  contemplated  arrangement.  The  considera- 
tions which  influenced  him  in  approaching  the 
question  of  "partition"  were  discussed  at  some 

[25S] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

length  in  a  preceding  chapter  in  connection  with 
the  Buckingham  Palace  Conference.  They  were 
now  more  cogent  than  ever,  and  Mr.  Redmond 
took  his  political  fortunes  in  both  hands  in  press- 
ing for  an  immediate  settlement  in  terms  of  "par- 
tition." 

The  Ulster  Nationalist  Convention  was  held  in 
private ;  but  it  was  known  that  Mr.  Redmond  gave 
the  Convention  his  assurance  that  the  proposed 
exclusion  of  the  six  Ulster  counties  was  to  have 
the  most  definite  time-limit  set  upon  it,  and  that 
he  supported  his  plea  for  the  acceptance  of  the 
settlement  upon  these  conditions  with  the  state- 
ment that,  if  the  proposals  were  not  accepted,  it 
would  be  the  last  occasion  when  he  would  speak 
upon  a  public  platform  as  leader  of  the  Irish 
Party.    His  threat  of  resignation  carried  the  day. 

The  Nationalist  Convention  had  now  accepted 
the  proposed  settlement  on  the  understanding 
that  it  was  to  be  "temporary  and  provisional," 
while  the  Ulster  Unionist  Council  had  accepted  it 
on  the  understanding  that  the  exclusion  of  the  six 
counties  was  to  be  "definite."  It  was  soon  appar- 
ent that  this  divergence  in  the  interpretation  of 
the  terms  by  the  two  contracting  parties  was  not 
merely  a  matter  of  words.  The  Government's 
promised  Bill  embodying  the  proposed  settlement 
was  not  forthcoming.    Nationalist  opposition  to 

[254] 


A  CLOUDED  ENDING 

the  scheme  of  "partition"  grew  stronger,  and 
suspicion  of  the  Government's  good  faith  in  the 
matter  grew  with  it.  Finally  a  speech  of  Lord 
Lansdowne,  indicating  that  the  Unionist  mem- 
bers of  the  Cabinet  were  insisting  that  the  terms 
of  the  Amending  Bill  should  make  it  clear  that 
the  excluded  Ulster  counties  could  not  be  brought 
under  Home  Rule  against  their  will,  and  that 
when  the  Home  Rule  Act  came  into  operation  the 
Irish  representation  should  be  reduced,  provoked 
an  ultimatum  from  Mr.  Redmond. 

In  a  letter  to  the  Prime  Minister  and  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  he  declared  that  the  long  delay  in  the  pro- 
duction of  the  Government's  Bill  and  the  uncer- 
tainty and  irritation  caused  by  the  speech  of  Lord 
Lansdowne  had  created  a  very  serious  situation 
in  Ireland,  and  that  any  further  delay  would  make 
a  settlement  on  the  lines  laid  down  in  the  terms 
submitted  by  Mr.  Lloyd  George  quite  impossible. 
He  recalled  the  fact  that  he  and  his  colleagues 
"obtained  the  assent  of  our  friends  in  Ireland  in 
the  face  of  very  great  difficulties,  as  the  proposed 
terms  were  far  from  popular."  Finally  he  an- 
nounced that  "any  proposal  to  depart  from  the 
terms  agreed  upon,  especially  in  respect  of  the 
strictly  temporary  and  provisional  character  of 
all  the  sections  of  the  Bill,  would  compel  us  to 
declare  that  the  agreement,  on  the  faith  of  which 

[265] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

we  obtained  the  assent  of  our  supporters  in  Ire- 
land, had  been  departed  from  and  was  at  an  end." 
On  July  24th — two  years  to  a  day  after  the 
break-down  of  the  Buckingham  Palace  Confer- 
ence— the  Prime  Minister  announced  that  the 
Government  did  not  propose  to  introduce  a  Bill 
in  regard  to  which  there  did  not  appear  to  be  a 
prospect  of  substantial  agreement;  and  Mr.  Red- 
mond, in  the  subsequent  debate,  revealed  the  inner 
history  of  the  negotiations.  He  said  that  Mr. 
Lloyd  George  submitted  to  Sir  Edward  Carson 
and  himself  a  series  of  proposals  for  a  temporary 
and  provisional  settlement  of  the  Irish  question, 
as  a  war  emergency  measure,  to  cover  the  period 
of  the  war,  and  that,  after  considerable  negotia- 
tion and  many  changes,  it  was  agreed  by  Sir  Ed- 
ward Carson  and  himself  to  recommend  these 
proposals  to  their  friends.  The  Nationalist  lead- 
ers never  concealed  from  themselves  the  fact  that 
these  proposals  entailed  very  great  sacrifices  on 
the  part  of  their  supporters.  They  felt,  however, 
that,  as  the  proposals  had  been  put  before  them 
as  a  matter  affecting  the  highest  Imperial  inter- 
ests, it  was  their  duty  not  only  to  Ireland,  but  to 
the  Empire,  to  obtain  the  assent  of  their  support- 
ers if  possible.  The  exact  words  of  the  agree- 
ment, which  was  arrived  at  after  considerable 
consultation,  was  that  the  Bill  was  to  remain  in 

[256] 


A  CLOUDED  ENDING 

force  during  the  continuance  of  the  war,  and  for 
a  period  of  twelve  months  afterwards,  this  period 
to  be  extended  by  Order  in  Council  if  necessary 
to  enable  Parliament  to  make  further  and  perma- 
nent provision  for  the  government  of  Ireland, 

"None  of  us,"  said  Mr.  Redmond,  "desired 
then,  and  none  of  us  desires  now,  that  any  county 
in  Ulster  which  objected  to  Home  Rule  should  be 
coerced  into  accepting  it.  Our  hope  was  that 
the  interval  would,  by  sane  and  tolerant  govern- 
ment in  the  rest  of  Ireland,  show  our  fellow-coun- 
trymen that  their  fears  were  to  a  great  extent 
groundless,  and  that,  after  they  had  fought  and 
bled  side  by  side  in  the  war,  they  would  be  willing, 
when  a  permanent  settlement  was  come  to,  to 
join  in  the  common  good  of  their  country.  But 
we  never  contemplated  that  this  great  question 
was  to  be  foreclosed  and  settled  now.  Another 
fundamental  proposal  was  that,  during  the  transi- 
tory period  pending  the  present  settlement,  the 
number  of  Irish  members  in  the  Imperial  Parlia- 
ment was  to  remain  as  at  present.  That  we  re- 
garded as  an  indispensable  safeguard  of  the  tem- 
porary character  of  the  arrangement." 

In  concluding  what  he  called  "this  somewhat 
sorry"  story  Mr.  Redmond  said  that  he  had  actu- 
ally seen  the  draft  of  the  Bill,  which  was  strictly 
in  accordance  with  the  agreement,  and  that  he 

[267] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

was  then  suddenly  informed  by  the  Government 
that  it  had  been  decided  at  a  Cabinet  Council  to 
insert  two  entirely  new  provisions,  one  of  which 
provided  for  the  permanent  exclusion  of  the  six 
Ulster  counties,  and  the  other  cut  out  the  pro- 
vision for  the  retention  of  the  Irish  members  in 
their  full  strength  at  Westminster  during  the 
transitory  period.  "I  will  not  bandy  words  about 
breaches  of  faith  or  violation  of  solemn  agree- 
ment," Mr.  Redmond  concluded,  "but  I  want  this 
House  and  the  Government  clearly  to  understand 
that  they  have  entered  on  a  course  which  is  bound 
to  increase  Irish  suspicion  of  the  good  faith  of 
British  statesmen,  a  course  which  is  bound  to  in- 
flame feeling  in  Ireland,  and  is  bound  to  do  seri- 
ous mischief  to  those  high  Imperial  interests 
which  we  were  told  necessitated  the  provisional 
settlement  of  this  question.  Some  tragic  fatality 
seems  to  dog  the  footsteps  of  this  Government  in 
all  their  dealings  with  Ireland.  Every  step  taken 
by  them  since  the  Coalition,  and  especially  since 
the  unfortunate  outbreak  in  Dublin,  has  been  la- 
mentable. They  have  disregarded  any  advice 
that  we  have  tendered  to  them,  and  now  in  the 
end,  having  got  us  to  induce  our  people  to  make 
the  tremendous  sacrifice  of  agreeing  to  the  tem- 
porary exclusion  of  the  six  Ulster  counties,  they 
have  thrown  this  agreement  to  the  winds,  and 

[258] 


A  CLOUDED  ENDING 

they  have  taken  the  securest  means  of  accentuat- 
ing every  possible  danger  and  difficulty  in  the 
Irish  situation." 

Sir  Edward  Carson  afterwards  recorded  a  con- 
versation which  he  had  with  Mr.  Redmond  dur- 
ing the  negotiations  which  issued  in  this  impotent 
conclusion:  "Unless  we  can  settle  this  intermi- 
nable business,"  said  Mr.  Redmond,  "you  and  I 
will  be  dead  before  anything  is  done  to  pacify 
Ireland."  The  remark  was  to  prove  true  in  his 
own  case;  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the 
failure  of  this  attempt  at  settlement  and  the 
weight  which  it  added  to  his  cares  contributed 
greatly  towards  hastening  his  end. 

The  circumstances  in  which  the  attempt  at  set- 
tlement failed  did  the  gravest  damage  to  Mr. 
Redmond's  position  in  Ireland.  He  incurred  all 
the  odium  of  having  accepted  the  unpopular  ex- 
pedient of  "partition"  without  gaining  any  of  the 
credit  for  his  courageous  attempt  to  effect  a  tem- 
porary settlement.  Moreover,  the  circumstances 
in  which  the  attempt  failed  enabled  his  critics  to 
point  the  obvious  moral  of  his  policy  of  seeking  to 
retain  the  sympathy  and  accepting  the  good  faith 
of  British  politicians.  Sir  Horace  Plunkett,  af- 
terwards Chairman  of  the  Convention,  expressed 
at  this  time  the  opinion  that  the  Government's  ac- 
tion "would  arouse  an  opposition  which  would 

[269] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

drive  tens  of  thousands  of  moderate  men  into  the 
Sinn  Fein  camp";  and  his  prediction  was  fully- 
justified  by  the  event. 

The  failure  of  the  attempt  at  settlement  was 
followed  by  the  complete  restoration  of  the  sys- 
tem of  Castle  Government  which  Mr.  Asquith, 
two  months  before,  had  described  as  finally  dis- 
credited, and  most  of  the  oflEices  in  the  new  Irish 
Executive  were  filled  by  Unionists,  while  Sir  John 
Maxwell  was  retained  as  Commander-in-Chief 
with  the  powers  of  martial  law  at  his  command. 
In  a  speech  in  Parliament  on  July  31st,  Mr.  Red- 
mond, after  expressing  his  feeling  that  what  had 
happened  made  a  peaceful  settlement  in  the  end 
absolutely  certain,  declared  that,  in  the  name  of 
himself  and  his  colleagues,  he  must  protest 
against  this  arrangement.  It  was  his  party's 
plain  duty  "to  watch  and  criticise  and  oppose  this 
new  administration  how  and  when  and  where  they 
pleased."  He  added  that  "in  the  course  of  this 
controversy  I  have  not  for  one  moment  forgot- 
ten the  war.  Notwithstanding  all  that  has  hap- 
pened, nothing  will  have  the  effect  of  altering  my 
view  about  the  war  and  Ireland's  duty  towards 
the  war." 

In  October  Mr.  Redmond  made,  in  his  own  con- 
stituency at  Waterford,  his  first  appearance  at  a 
political  gathering  in  Ireland  since  the  rising.    He 

[260] 


A  CLOUDED  ENDING 

said  that  the  first  fact  they  must  look  in  the  face 
was  that  a  bad  blow  was  struck  at  the  hopes  of 
Ireland  by  the  rising  in  Dublin  engineered  by 
men  who  were  enemies  of  the  constitutional  move- 
ment for  Home  Rule.  The  real  responsibility 
rested  with  the  British  Government,  and  it  was 
idle  to  suppose  that  the  relations  between  Ireland 
and  the  Government  could  continue  as  they  had 
been  before.  Mr.  Redmond  described  the  Gov- 
ernment's conduct  towards  Ireland  since  the  war 
began  as  marked  by  the  most  colossal  ineptitude, 
want  of  sympathy,  and  stupidity,  so  much  so  that 
its  conduct  would  have  chilled  the  confidence  of 
any  people,  much  less  a  people  like  Ireland,  whose 
history  had  taught  them  how  dangerous  it  was 
to  trust  English  statesmen;  and  finally  the  Gov- 
ernment had  suppressed  the  rising  with  gross  and 
panicky  violence,  and  had  closed  its  ears  to  the 
plea  for  clemency.  Now  Dublin  Castle  was  again 
a  Tory  stronghold,  and  martial  law  was  in  exist- 
ence in  every  part  of  the  country.  "With  such 
a  Government  with  such  a  record,"  declared  Mr. 
Redmond  emphatically,  "the  Irish  Nationalist 
representatives  can  have  no  relations  but  those  of 
vigorous  opposition." 

He  proceeded  to  deal  at  length  with  the  ques- 
tion of  conscription.    It  would  be  resisted,  he  said, 
in  every  village  in  Ireland;  its  attempted  enforce- 
[2611 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

ment  would  be  a  scandal  which  would  ring  round 
the  civiHsed  world.  That  way,  said  Mr.  Red- 
mond, lay  madness,  ruin,  and  disaster.  The  way 
to  continue  to  get  recruits  was  far  different. 
"Appease  the  inflamed  feelings  of  the  Irish  peo- 
ple, withdraw  martial  law,  make  it  plain  that  the 
Defence  of  the  Realm  Act  is  to  be  administered 
in  Ireland  in  the  same  spirit  as  in  Great  Britain, 
treat  the  prisoners  of  this  unfortunate  rising  as 
political  prisoners,  put  a  stop  to  the  insults  and 
attacks  upon  Ireland,  and  recognise  generously 
and  chivalrously  all  she  has  done."  He  added 
that  Ireland's  attitude  so  far  as  the  war  was  con- 
cerned was  unchanged,  that  the  Nationalist  Party 
would  "do  nothing  calculated  to  postpone  by  a 
single  instant  the  victorious  end  of  this  conflict," 
and  that  "I  do  think  it  would  be  a  disgrace  to  Ire- 
land if  the  Irishmen  fighting  at  the  front  were 
left  in  the  lurch,  and  if  Ireland  did  not  go  to  their 
assistance." 

The  new  policy  of  "open  and  vigorous  opposi- 
tion to  the  Government  on  all  else  beside  the  war," 
announced  by  Mr.  Redmond  in  his  Waterford 
speech,  was  quickly  put  into  practice  in  Parlia- 
ment, where  he  introduced  a  resolution  "that  the 
system  of  government  at  present  maintained  in 
Ireland  is  inconsistent  with  the  principles  for 
which  the  Allies  are  fighting  in  Europe,  and  is,  or 

[262] 


A  CLOUDED  ENDING 

has  been,  mainly  responsible  for  the  recent  un- 
happy events,  and  for  the  present  state  of  feel- 
ing in  that  country";  but  nothing  came  of  the 
debate. 

The  fall  of  Mr.  Asquith's  Cabinet  and  the  for- 
mation of  Mr.  Lloyd  George's  Administration, 
with  its  predominance  of  Unionist  Ministers,  cre- 
ated in  the  December  of  1916  great  excitement  in 
Ireland.  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  in  outlining  the  new 
Government's  policy  on  December  19th,  made  a 
brief  reference  to  Ireland,  and  said  that,  while  he 
had  not  yet  been  able  to  devote  any  time  to  the 
Irish  problem,  he  would  consider  a  settlement  as 
a  war  measure  of  the  first  importance  and  a  great 
victory  for  the  Allied  cause.  Mr.  Redmond  ex- 
pressed his  deep  disappointment  at  the  Prime 
Minister's  "vague  and  indefinite"  reference  to 
Ireland.  He  asked  as  a  Christmas  gift  to  the 
Irish  people  that  the  prisoners  of  the  rising  in- 
terned without  trial  should  be  released,  and  said 
that  if  the  Government  would  take  its  courage  in 
both  hands  and  make  a  general  jail  delivery — to 
include  the  prisoners  serving  court-martial  sen- 
tences of  penal  servitude — it  would  be  doing  more 
to  create  a  better  atmosphere  and  a  better  feeling 
than  anything  else  it  could  do. 

Mr.  Redmond  went  on  to  say  that  if  the  Gov- 
ernment intended  to  deal  with  the  final  reconcilia- 

[263] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

tion  of  Irish  opinion  by  a  settlement  of  the  Irish 
question,  there  were  two  or  three  things  he  would 
like  to  say.  The  first  was  that  time  was  of  the 
essence  of  the  matter :  the  worst  thing  that  could 
happen  to  the  Irish  question  was  that  it  should  be 
allowed  to  drift  further.  His  next  point  was  that 
the  Government  should  deal  with  the  question 
boldly  on  its  own  responsibility  and  initiative, 
he  did  not  think  anything  was  to  be  gained  by  con. 
templating  further  negotiations.  Finally  he  de- 
clared that  the  Government  must  not  mix  up  this 
question  with  conditions  of  recruiting  or  con- 
scription, which  must  be  left  to  a  change  of  heart 
in  Ireland.  In  conclusion  he  appealed  to  the 
Prime  Minister,  "in  Heaven's  name  let  him  not 
miss  the  tide." 

Mr.  Redmond's  plea  of  urgency  was  clearly 
well  founded.  The  interned  prisoners  were  re- 
leased just  before  Christmas,  and  with  their  re- 
lease it  quickly  became  apparent  that  the  senti- 
ment of  Sinn  Fein  was  being  canalised  into  a  defi- 
nite policy.  Sinn  Fein  clubs  began  to  appear  up 
and  down  the  country.  Early  in  19 17 — in  Febru- 
ary— the  first  opportunity  for  Sinn  Fein  to  show 
its  strength  came  in  the  North  Roscommon  elec- 
tion. This  resulted  in  a  victory  for  the  candidate 
of  the  new  movement  by  a  clear  majority  over 
both  the  Parliamentary  Party's  candidate  and  an 

[264]; 


A  CLOUDED  ENDING 

independent  candidate,  and  began  the  series  of 
electoral  successes  for  Sinn  Fein  which  were  to 
culminate  in  Mr.  de  Valera's  sweeping  victory  in 
East  Clare  a  few  months  later.  But  just  before 
the  Christmas  of  19 16  also,  an  unofficial  but  in- 
fluential group  of  Irishmen,  mostly  with  no  very 
definite  political  attachments,  began  to  work, 
under  the  name  of  the  Irish  Conference  Commit- 
tee, for  a  conference  of  Irish  parties  in  an  attempt 
to  settle  the  Irish  question  by  consent.  Thus 
emerged  two  conflicting  tendencies  which  were  to 
dominate  Irish  politics  during  the  following  year 
— on  the  one  hand  the  militant  Sinn  Fein  policy 
irreconcilably  opposed  to  a  constitutional  settle- 
ment, on  the  other  what  may  be  called  by  con- 
trast the  Convention  policy. 

On  March  7th,  1917,  Mr.  T.  P.  O'Connor 
moved  in  the  House  of  Commons  a  resolution  to 
the  effect  "that,  with  a  view  to  strengthening  the 
hands  of  the  Allies  in  achieving  the  recognition 
of  the  equal  rights  of  small  nations  and  the  prin- 
ciple of  nationality  against  the  opposite  German 
principle  of  military  domination  and  government 
without  the  consent  of  the  governed,  it  is  essen- 
tial, without  further  delay,  to  confer  on  Ireland 
the  free  institutions  long  promised  to  her."  Mr. 
Lloyd  George,  in  his  reply,  said  that  the  dominant 
consideration  in  any  present  settlement  must  be 

[266] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

its  effect  on  the  conduct  of  the  war.  There  must 
be  no  attempt  at  settlement  which  would  provoke 
civil  disturbance.  The  Government  was  prepared 
to  confer  self-government  on  those  parts  of  Ire- 
land which  unmistakably  demanded  it;  but  they 
were  not  prepared  to  coerce  North-East  Ulster. 

Mr.  Redmond  solemnly  protested  against  the 
Prime  Minister's  statement.  He  asked  whether 
the  Ulster  minority  were  to  have  power  over  t^e 
majority  for  ever.  Mr.  Lloyd  George's  state- 
ment, he  said,  would  play  right  into  the  hands  of 
those  who  were  trying  to  destroy  the  constitu- 
tional movement.  He  admitted  that  the  condition 
of  Ireland  was  very  serious,  that  able  men  with 
money  at  their  command  were  bent  on  smashing 
the  constitutional  movement.  "If  the  constitu- 
tional movement  disappears,"  he  declared,  "the 
Prime  Minister  will  find  himself  face  to  face  with 
the  revolutionary  movement,  and  he  will  have  to 
govern  Ireland  with  the  naked  sword."  Finally 
Mr.  Redmond  called  upon  his  colleagues  to  with- 
draw as  a  protest  against  the  Government's  atti- 
tude, and  the  Irish  Party  thereupon  followed  him 
out  of  the  House  of  Commons. 

Subsequently  the  Party  drafted  and  issued  a 
manifesto  to  the  United  States  and  the  Domin- 
ions. It  declared  that  the  policy  of  the  Govern- 
ment towards  Ireland  had  made  the  task  of  carry- 

[266] 


A  CLOUDED  ENDING 

ing  on  a  constitutional  movement  in  Ireland  so 
difficult  as  to  be  almost  impossible.  It  described 
Mr.  Lloyd  George's  speech  as  taking  up  a  posi- 
tion which,  if  adhered  to,  would  involve  a  denial 
of  self-government  to  Ireland  for  ever.  It  con- 
cluded with  a  special  appeal  to  the  American  peo- 
ple in  general,  and  the  Irish- Americans  in  particu- 
lar, to  "urge  upon  the  British  Government  the 
duty  of  applying  to  Ireland  the  great  principles  so 
clearly  and  splendidly  enunciated  by  President 
Wilson  in  his  historic  Address  to  the  Senate  of 
America."  The  United  States  were  at  this  time 
just  entering  the  war;  and  the  possible  effect  of 
the  Irish  Party's  strongly  worded  appeal  to  Irish- 
Americans  was  doubtless  not  the  least  cogent  of 
the  considerations  which  on  March  22nd  impelled 
the  Government  to  announce  through  the  mouth 
of  Mr.  Bonar  Law,  that  it  had  decided  to  make, 
on  its  own  responsibility,  another  attempt  at  an 
Irish  settlement. 

The  Government's  proposal,  or  rather  propos- 
als, was  contained  in  a  circular  letter  of  May 
1 6th  addressed  by  the  Prime  Minister  to  Mr. 
Redmond  in  common  with  the  other  Irish  party 
leaders.  The  Government  proposed,  in  the  first 
place,  the  immediate  application  of  the  Home 
Rule  Act  to  Ireland,  excluding  the  six  north- 
eastern counties  of  Ulster,  this  arrangement  to 

[«67] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

be  subject  to  reconsideration  by  Parliament  at  the 
end  of  five  years ;  in  the  meantime  the  establish- 
ment of  a  Council  of  Ireland,  composed  of  mem- 
bers of  Parliament  of  the  excluded  area  and  an 
equal  delegation  from  the  Irish  Parliament,  with 
powers  to  pass  legislation  affecting  the  whole  of 
Ireland;  and  a  reconsideration  of  the  financial 
clauses  of  the  Act. 

This  thinly  disguised  scheme  of  "partition"  was 
certain  of  rejection  by  the  Irish  Party.  For  the 
moment  at  least  the  opportunity  for  a  settlement 
on  that  basis  had  passed.  The  Sinn  Fein  candi- 
date had  just  won  South  Longford  from  the  Par- 
liamentary Party's  candidate  by  a  very  narrow 
majority,  obtained  on  the  strength  of  an  allega- 
tion by  Archbishop  Walsh  of  Dublin  that  the 
country  was  "practically  sold"  into  "partition." 
Mr.  Redmond  replied  to  the  Prime  Minister  that 
his  proposals  had  been  carefully  considered  by 
himself  and  his  colleagues,  and  that  "the  first  pro- 
posal would,  in  their  opinion,  find  no  support  in 
Ireland,  and  they  desire  me  to  inform  you  that 
they  are  irreconcilably  opposed  to  this  scheme, 
and  that  any  measure  based  on  it  will  meet  with 
their  vigorous  opposition." 

The  Prime  Minister's  alternative  proposal,  in 
resort  as  it  were  to  an  expedient  almost  of  des- 
peration, was  the  plan  of  a  Convention,  which,  in 

[268] 


A  CLOUDED  ENDING 

default  of  the  acceptance  of  its  first  proposal,  the 
Government  declared  itself  prepared  to  take  the 
necessary  steps  to  assemble.  This  alternative 
Mr.  Redmond  described  and  accepted.  His  ac- 
ceptance of  the  Convention  plan  was  wholly  con- 
sistent with  the  tendency  of  his  entire  political 
career.  It  followed  naturally  from  his  participa- 
tion in  the  Recess  Committee  which  had  led  to  the 
creation  of  the  Irish  Department  of  Agriculture, 
and  his  share  in  the  Land  Conference  which  se- 
cured the  passage  of  the  Wyndham  Land  Act.  It 
accorded  with  his  political  principle  that  Irishmen 
in  council  were  the  proper  and  only  competent 
body  for  the  settlement  of  Irish  questions.  It  was 
largely  his  own  leadership  of  the  Irish  Party 
which  made  possible  the  assembly  of  such  a  body 
as  the  Irish  Convention,  and  that  leadership  and 
its  attitude  within  the  Convention  which  made 
possible  such  a  measure  of  agreement  as  that  body 
was  to  reach. 

In  announcing,  on  June  nth,  the  constitution 
of  the  Convention,  the  Prime  Minister  referred  to 
the  death  of  Mr.  Redmond's  brother.  Major  "Wil- 
lie" Redmond,  who  a  few  days  before  had  been 
killed  in  action  at  Messines.  He  recalled  Major 
Redmond's  last  appeal  in  Parliament:  "While 
English  and  Irish  soldiers  are  dying  side  by  side, 
must  the  eternal  conflict  between  the  two  coun- 

[269] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

tries  go  on?  In  the  name  of  God,  we  here,  who 
are  perhaps  about  to  die,  ask  you  to  do  that  which 
largely  induced  us  to  leave  our  homes ;  that  which 
our  fathers  and  mothers  taught  us  to  long  for; 
that  which  is  all  we  desire  to  make  our  country 
happy  and  contented."  Mr.  Lloyd  George  re- 
called also  the  fact  that  Major  Redmond  was 
"carried  tenderly  and  reverently  from  the  field  by 
Ulster  soldiers  in  an  Ulster  ambulance,"  and 
pointed  to  the  circumstances  of  his  death  as  pro- 
viding an  inspiration  for  the  work  of  the  Con- 
vention. 

But  the  death  of  his  brother,  which  was  very 
deeply  felt  by  Mr.  Redmond,  was  to  do  some- 
thing else  besides  provide  an  inspiration  for  the 
work  of  the  Convention.  It  was  to  provide  the 
occasion  for  the  event  which,  even  while  the  Con- 
vention was  assembling,  was  at  once  to  disclose 
the  full  strength  of  Sinn  Fein  in  Ireland  and  con- 
firm its  hold  on  the  popular  imagination — the 
East  Clare  election.  In  view  of  the  Convention 
the  Government  had  declared  a  general  amnesty. 
Mr.  de  Valera,  the  most  prominent  of  the  impris- 
oned insurgents,  who  had  been  a  commandant  in 
Dublin  during  the  rising,  was  at  once  adopted  as 
Sinn  Fein  candidate  for  the  seat  left  vacant  by 
Major  Redmond's  death.  The  Sinn  Fein  leader 
was  elected  in  Major  Redmond's  room  by  an  enor- 

[270] 


A  CLOUDED  ENDING 

mous  majority.  It  was  under  the  shadow  of  this 
significant  event  that  the  Convention  assembled 
in  Dublin  in  the  Regent  House  of  Trinity  College 
on  July  25th,  1917. 

The  Convention  represented,  in  effect,  a  final 
attempt  to  stay  the  swift  transition  from  a  con- 
stitutional Ireland  to  a  revolutionary  Ireland.  Its 
chances  of  success  depended  on  the  formation  of 
a  strong  Centre  Party,  standing  between  the 
Orange  extremists  at  one  end  and  the  Sinn  Fein 
extremists  at  the  other.  So  far  as  Unionist  Ul- 
ster was  concerned,  if  its  assent  to  Home  Rule 
could  not  be  won  by  liberal  concessions,  the  best 
issue  to  be  expected,  calculated  in  the  long  run  to 
secure  the  same  result,  was  such  a  measure  of 
agreement  among  all  the  other  parties  and  the 
non-party  interests  represented  in  the  Conven- 
tion as  would  put  the  "old  guard"  of  Ulster 
Unionism  in  a  position  of  complete  moral  isola- 
tion. 

It  was  to  such  an  issue  to  the  Convention  that 
Mr.  Redmond  devoted  the  closing  months  of  his 
life.  He  was  elected  a  member  of  the  Grand 
Committee  of  twenty  members  appointed  on  Sep- 
tember 27th,  "to  prepare  a  scheme  for  submis- 
sion to  the  Convention  which  would  meet  the 
views  and  difficulties  expressed  by  the  various 
speakers"  during  the  preliminary  debate,  and 

[271] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

shared  in  the  drafting  of  what  was  called  the 
"Midleton  compromise"  put  before  the  full  Con- 
vention on  its  reassembly  on  December  i8th  to 
receive  the  Grand  Committee's  report.  This 
scheme,  for  which  Lord  Midleton,  the  leader  of 
the  Southern  Unionist  delegation,  was  chiefly  re- 
sponsible, was  thus  described  in  the  final  Report 
of  the  Convention  drafted  by  its  Chairman,  Sir 
Horace  Plunkett.  "It  accepted  self-government 
for  Ireland.  In  return  for  special  minority  repre- 
sentation in  the  Irish  Parliament,  already  con- 
ceded by  the  Nationalists,  it  ofifered  to  that  Par- 
liament complete  power  over  internal  legislation 
and  administration;  and,  in  matters  of  finance, 
over  direct  taxation  and  Excise.  But,  although 
they  agreed  that  the  Customs  revenue  should  be 
paid  into  the  Irish  Exchequer,  the  Southern 
Unionists  insisted  upon  the  permanent  reserva- 
tion to  the  Imperial  Parliament  of  the  power  to 
fix  the  rate  of  Customs  duties.  By  far  the  greater 
part  of  our  time  and  attention  was  occupied  by 
this  one  question,  whether  the  imposition  of  Cus- 
toms duties  should  or  should  not  be  under  the  con- 
trol of  the  Irish  Parliament." 

Mr.  Redmond,  who  had  taken  the  leading  part 
in  offering  such  concessions  as  special  minority 
representation  to  the  Unionists,  strove  his  hard- 
est to  effect  a  compromise  on  this  vital  question 

[272] 


A  CLOUDED  ENDING 

of  Customs.  He  felt  that  nothing  effective  could 
result  from  the  work  of  the  Convention  unless 
some  understanding  was  reached  upon  Customs 
which  would  render  an  agreement  on  a  complete 
scheme  obtainable.  Accordingly  he  was  willing 
to  agree,  in  order  that  a  Parliament  should  be  at 
once  established,  to  postpone  a  legislative  decision 
upon  the  ultimate  control  of  Customs  and  Excise. 
This  compromise  was  accepted  by  all  the  South- 
ern Unionists,  five  of  the  seven  Labour  delegates, 
and  most  of  the  non-party  representatives;  and 
laid,  in  the  Chairman's  words,  "a  foundation  of 
Irish  agreement  unprecedented  in  history."  It 
was  opposed,  however,  by  a  strong  Nationalist 
minority,  headed  by  Mr.  Devlin,  and  including 
three  of  the  four  Roman  Catholic  Bishops  in 
the  Convention.  These  held  that,  without  sepa- 
rate Customs  and  Excise,  Ireland  would  fail  to  at- 
tain a  national  status  like  that  enjoyed  by  the 
Dominions,  and  that,  in  the  present  state  of  Irish 
opinion,  without  Customs  no  scheme  the  Conven- 
tion recommended  would  receive  sufficient  popu- 
lar support  to  be  effective. 

The  failure  to  induce  this  strong  Nationalist 
minority  to  accept  the  Midleton  compromise,  and 
thereby  to  secure  the  complete  agreement  of  all 
sections  except  the  Ulster  Unionists,  was  a  bitter 
disappointment  to  Mr.  Redmond.    He  returned 

[«78] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

to  London  in  the  early  spring  of  1918  a  broken 
man,  and  took  no  part  in  the  final  meetings  of  the 
Convention.  Perhaps  mercifully,  he  did  not  live 
to  see  the  Convention's  Report  finally  presented 
with  such  an  incomplete  measure  of  agreement  as 
had  been  reached,  and  even  that  outcome  of  its 
labours  promptly  wrecked  by  the  Government's 
sudden  decision  to  apply  conscription  to  Ireland, 
a  policy  which  for  the  time  being  almost  wholly 
submerged  the  constitutional  movement  in  whose 
service  he  had  spent  his  life. 

John  Redmond  died  in  London  on  March  6th, 
1918,  and  was  buried  in  Wexford  in  the  family 
burial-ground  at  the  end  of  the  week.  Upon  the 
news  of  his  death  the  Convention,  then  in  session 
adjourned  out  of  respect  for  his  memory  until 
after  the  funeral,  passing  first  a  resolution  which 
declared  that  he  "was  valued  by  all  as  a  great 
Irishman,  a  brilliant  Parliamentarian,  an  honour- 
able opponent,  a  kindly  friend,  a  genial  and  warm- 
hearted comrade."  It  was  an  apt  epitome  of  the 
character  of  the  Irish  leader  whose  own  last 
words,  quoted  by  the  Prime  Minister  in  his  trib- 
ute to  Mr.  Redmond's  memory  in  Parliament, 
were,  indeed,  a  summary  of  his  whole  political 
life — "a  plea  for  concord  between  the  two  races 
that  Providence  has  designed  should  work  as 
neighbours  together." 

[274] 


A  CLOUDED  ENDING 

In  retrospect  one  sees  the  dominant  purpose  of 
his  political  life  emerging  from  his  career  as  a 
recurrent  motif  of  gathering  force.  The  Recess 
Committee;  the  Land  Conference;  the  Conven- 
tion, that  last  chance  of  recovering  the  lost  and 
misused  opportunity  which  the  war  created — in 
these  episodes  most  unmistakably  the  purpose 
grows  and  broadens.  To  widen  the  happy  ac- 
cord on  the  most  impracticable  of  all  Irish  dis- 
orders, the  agrarian,  into  a  concordat  of  Cath- 
olic and  Protestant  in  the  same  spirit  of  generous 
toleration  among  Irishmen  that  was  the  glory  of 
Grattan's  Parliament  and  of  Wolfe  Tone's  Unit- 
ed Irishmen ;  to  combine,  by  the  same  triumphant 
process  of  consent  that  had  extinguished  land- 
lordism all  Irish  ranks  and  creeds  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  Home  Rule :  such  was  his  endeavour. 

Such  was  the  endeavour  for  which  the  war  of- 
fered the  crowning  opportunity.  If  that  oppor- 
tunity was  wasted,  the  main  fault  was  not  John 
Redmond's.  How  far  did  he  fail  through  falli- 
bility of  judgment  of  his  own ;  how  far  through 
the  active  opposition  of  the  forces  which  desired 
strife  where  he  desired  peace  or  the  deadline  vis 
inertiae  of  the  human  material  which  he  sought 
to  mould;  how  far  through  the  working  of  that 
incalculable  mischance  which  steadily  mocks  the 

[276] 


THE  LIFE  OF  JOHN  REDMOND 

best  efforts  of  Irish  leaders?  One  cannot  as  yet 
gain  a  fair  historical  perspective  for  distributing 
the  responsibility  among  these  various  factors: 
all  of  them  in  some  measure  contributed  to  the 
ending  of  his  life-work  in  disappointment  and 
defeat. 

But  against  the  immediate  background  of  un- 
toward circumstance  stands  out  the  fine  figure  of 
a  great  Irish  gentleman  who  played  for  a  high 
stake  gallantly,  and  lost  without  dishonour.  We 
recall  the  fact  that  his  great  Parliamentary  pre- 
decessors of  the  nineteenth  century,  Daniel 
O'Connell,  Isaac  Butt,  Charles  Stewart  Parnell, 
lost  before  they  died,  as  John  Redmond  did,  the 
"confidence"  of  a  majority  of  their  people.  We 
know,  however,  that,  even  among  the  Irish  them- 
selves, the  reputations  of  O'Connell,  Butt  and 
Parnell  have  not  been  lessened  by  that  fact.  The 
crown  of  romance  adorns  their  memories.  And 
however  the  Irish  at  home  may  feel  at  the  mo- 
ment, there  is  no  doubt  that  the  Irish  in  England, 
in  America,  in  the  British  Dominions  stand  by 
the  principles  for  which  John  Redmond  lived  and 
died.  There  is  still  a  prospect  that  his  policy  may 
be  triumphantly  vindicated  in  all  its  aspects.  It 
may  still  be  shown  that,  judged  merely  by  the 
worldly  test  of  practical  results,  he  was  successful 

[276] 


A  CLOUDED  ENDING 

beyond  all  those  who  have  sought  to  serve  Ire- 
land. It  is  sure  at  all  events  that  John  Redmond's 
life  work  is  no  more  wasted  than  the  life  work 
of  Parnell  and  O'Connell;  for  nothing  that  is  sin- 
cere and  loyal  is  lost. 


THE  END 


INDEX 


All-for-Ireland       League. 

See  O'Brien,  William. 
America,     Redmond's    visits 

to,    68-69,    90,    96,    102, 

129,  130,  185. 
America    and    Home    Rule, 

144-147,     242-245,     255, 

265-268,  276. 
Anglicisation,  Redmond  and, 

43,  181,  244. 
Asquith,   H.   H.,  85-86,   I17- 

118,   123,   134,   194,   199, 

204,  232,  284,  263. 
Aughavanagh,  37,  39,  132. 
Australia,     Redmond's    visit 

to,  68-70,  185. 

Bachelor's  Walk,  209-14- 
Balfour,    A.   J.,   40,   70,   71, 

102,  103. 
Balfour,  Gerald,  87,  88. 
Belgium,    Ireland   and,   221- 

23- 

Biggar,  J.,  50. 

Birrell,  Augustine,  III,  128, 
169,  218,  244 

Boer  War,  89,  91,  193,  105- 
106. 

Boulogne  negotiations,  76- 
78. 

Bryce,  Lord,  in. 

Buckingham  Palace  Confer- 
ence.   See  King. 

Budget  (i909)»  "5»  "o. 
et  seq. 

Burke,  40,  182. 


Butt,   Isaac,   xvii-xx,   50-51, 
62-63,  69,  276. 

Campbell-Bannerman,    S» 

Henry,  105,  no,  117. 
Carson,    Sir    Edward,     149, 

190,   203-208,    221,    231- 

233i   253-254,   256  259. 
Casement,   Roger,    152,   201, 

218. 
Catholic  emancipation,  x-xv. 
Catholicism,    Redmond    and, 

32,  40-43,  47,  53,  81, 107, 

109,     1 14-15,     135.     139, 

157-158- 
Churchill,      Winston,       132, 

147,  190. 
Clan-na-Gael,  59,  63n,  239. 
Clarke,  Thomas,  86. 
Clongowes,  51-54,  68. 
Coalition       Government 

(First),  171;  (Second), 

232,  262. 
Committee  Room  XV.,  74,  jy. 
Congested    Districts    Board, 

180. 
Connolly,  James,  155,  239. 
Conscription,    234,    245-247, 

261-265,  273. 
Convention,  Irish,  206,  256- 

274. 
Co-operative  movement.   See 

Plunkett. 
Crook,  W.  H.,  37,  55,  184. 
"Curragh   Mutiny,"   I94-I95> 

196,  197,  201,  212,  231. 


[279] 


/ 


INDEX 


Davitt,  Michael,  xix,  41, 
62-63,  94,  97,  loi- 

Department  of  Agriculture, 
88,  180,  269. 

"Departure,  New,"  xix. 

De  Valera,  265,  270. 

Devoy,  xix,  63n. 

Devlin,  Joseph,  131,  150,  157, 
192,  273. 

Devolution,    102,    no- 121. 

Dillon,  John,  57,  62,  76,  86, 
89-90,  97-102,  181,  200- 
204,  233-235,  241,  248. 

"Dollar  Dictator,"   130. 

Dublin  Castle,  139,  261. 

Dunraven,  Lord,  100-102. 

Edward  VII.,  King,  and 
Lords'  Veto,  124. 

death,  127. 
Emmet,   Robert, 

insurrection  of,  xii. 

Federalism,  Butt  and,  xvii, 
62. 

Fenians,  xvi,  49,  60,  68,  169. 

Fenian  rising,  xvi,  xix,  175. 

Finance  of  Home  Rule,  136, 
141. 

Financial  relations.  Commis- 
sion on,  89. 

France,   Ireland  and,  222. 

Freeman's  Journal,  98,   131. 


General   election    (1895), 
84. 
(1900),  90,  92. 
(1906),  107. 

(1910),  118,  119,  122,  129. 
George   V.,   King,   and   con- 
stitutional crisis,  127, 130. 
Home  Rule,  203-205,  253, 
255. 

[280] 


George,  D.  Lloyd,  204,  228, 

252,  255,  256,  263,  270. 
"George  I.,  Sixth  of,"  viii. 
Germany  and  Ireland,  32,  33, 

145-146,    197,    239,    242- 

244. 
Gladstone,  xvi,  64,  66,  69,  70, 

73,  82,  84,   173. 
Gough,  General,   193-194. 
Grattan,   x,    xiii,    40,   41. 
Grattan's  Parliament,  ix.  x, 

139- 

Green,  Mrs.  Max.  See  Red- 
mond. 

Green,  Mrs.  J.  R.,  198. 

Grey,  Sir  Edward,  92,  125, 
145,  215. 

Griffith,  Arthur,  171,  et  seq., 
218. 

Gwynn,  Stephen,  37. 

Harrington,  T.  C,  81,  96. 
Healy,  T.  M.,  56,  57,  72,  74, 

87,  121,  129,  170. 
Hibernians,    Ancient    Order 

of.     See  Devlin. 
Home  Rule  Bill   (1886),  69, 

135,  137,  142,  173- 
(1893),  70,  82,  135,  142. 
(1912),  passim,  131-221. 
Home  Rule  Act,  passim,  221- 

276. 
Howard-Redmond,  L.  G.,  25, 

42,  185. 
Hungary  and  Ireland.     See 
Griffith. 


Imperialism,  Redmond  and, 
61,  70,  143,  144,  184-186, 
246,  256-259. 

Insurance  Act,  131. 

Irish  Council  Bill.  See  Dev- 
olution. 


INDEX 


Irish  Division,  231. 
Irish  Independent,  156. 
Irish   Revival,  43,   178,  182, 
187,  250. 

Jesuits,  53. 

Jones,  Harry,  126,  128-130. 

Kane,    Father    (of    Clon- 

gowes),  52-53. 
Kettle,  Lawrence,  151,  202. 
Kettle,  T.  M.,  5in,,  151. 
Kelly,  Rt.  Rev.  Dr.,  37. 
King's  Inn,  Dublin,  55,  69. 
Kitchener,  Lord,  230. 

Labour  Party,  Irish  Party 

and,    105,    117,    122. 
Land  Act  (1881),  65,  180. 
(1893),  94,  100,  105,  no, 

179. 
(1909),  107,  no,  179. 
Land    Conference,    96,    no, 
269,  275. 


MacCarthy,  Justin,  75,  86. 
MacDonnell,  Lord,  99,  in. 
MacNeill,    John,     151,     152, 

155,  202. 
Maxwell,  Sir  John,  227,  230, 

245,  260. 
Midleton,  Lord,  272-274. 
Mitchel,  John,  xv. 
Moore,  George  Henry,  50. 
Moore,    Colonel,    5on.,    151, 

228,  229. 
Morley,  Lord,  73,  74,   130. 
Murphy,  W.  M.,  150,  158. 

National  University,  54, 
102,  108,  120,  180. 

O'Brien,  Patrick,  36. 

O'Brien,  William,  72,  76-77, 
87,  89,  94-96,  97-102, 
119,  129,  176. 

Obstruction,  Parnell's  meth- 
ods of,  27,  64. 

O'Connell,  xiii-xv,  xvii,  276. 


Land   League,  xviii,  49,  50,  O'Connor,  T.  P.,  41,  57,  64- 

62,  63,65,67,72,  106, 119.  66,  72,  119,  265. 

Land   League  of  America,  59.  O'Grady,  Standish,  180. 

Land      Reform,      Redmond  O'Leary,  xviii. 

and,  41,  62-63,  89,  94,  et  Orator,  Redmond  as,  160  et 

seq.  seq. 

Lansdowne,  Lord,   188,  204,  O'Shea,  Captain,  72. 

255- 


Larkin,  James,  156,  157,  239. 

Larne,  gun-running  at,  197- 
203,  210-21 I,  231. 

Law,  Bonar,  204,  221,  232, 
267. 

Law,  Hugh,  33n,  36,  38. 

Leamy,  Edmond,  37,  74,  81. 

Lecky,  122. 

Local  Government  Act  (Ire- 
land), 88,  180. 

Long,  Walter,  103-194. 


Pale,   English,   viii,   35. 

Parnell,  xviii-xix,  26-30,  33- 
36,  46,  56-65,  67,  72-76, 
80,  90-94,  132-135,  168, 
170,  232,  249,  270. 

Parnell.  Mrs.,  7Q. 

"Partition."  Redmond  and, 
205-208,  253-255,  268. 

Pearse!  Patrick,  152. 

Phoenix  Park  murders,  66- 
68,  71- 


[281] 


INDEX 


Plunkett,  Sir  Horace,  87, 
180,  207,  259,  272. 

Protection,  Home  Rule  and, 
142. 

"Foyning's  Law,"  viii. 

Raymond  le  Gros,  44-47. 

Rebellion  of  1798,  vii,  xi,  32, 
152,  168. 
of  1916,  187,  205,  223,  228, 
235,  238-252,  260. 

Recess  Committee,  60,  88, 
269. 

Recruiting,  Redmond  and, 
30,  221,  222,  224,  225, 
228-231,  236,  261-263. 

Redmond,  Father  John,  48. 

Redmond,  John,  passim. 

Redmond,  Johanna,  34. 

Redmond,     William     Archer 
(father     of     John     Red- 
mond), xviii,  45,  48,  52, 

56. 
Redmond,    William,    34,    45, 

48,    51,   67,    68,    73,    80, 

270-1. 
Renunciation,  Act  of,  ix,  173. 
Repeal,  movement  for,  xiii- 

XV,  xvii. 
Republican  Brotherhood, 

Irish,  176,  239. 
Roberts,  Lord,  200, 
Rosebery,  Lord,  83, 84, 85,  92. 

Seely,  Colonel,  229. 

Sexton,  Thomas,   57,  74. 

Separation,  Redmond  and, 
29,  30,  61,  69,  118,  123, 
132,  134,  168,  184. 

Sinn  Fein,  27,  29.  31,  38,  39, 
122,  152,  165-188,  218, 
234,  238,  250-252,  264, 
270-272. 


Smith,   F.   E.     See   Birken- 
head. 
Spender,    Harold,    33n.,    37, 

41. 
Sportsman,  Redmond  as,  39. 
Stead,  W.  T.,  in,  184. 
Stephens,  James,  xvi. 
Syndicalism,  168. 

Theatre,  Irish  National,  42- 

43,  180. 
Trinity  College,  Dublin,  54, 

55,  108,  109. 

Ulster  Division,  230-233. 
Ulster    Unionist    Movement, 

29  et  seq.,   147,  passim, 

190-233. 
Ulster  Covenant,  147-148. 
Union,  Act  of,  vii,   ix,   xii, 

144. 
United  Irishmen,  48. 
United  Irish  League,  87,  89,  94. 
of  America,  128. 

Veto,  House  of  Lords',  116 
et  seq. 

Victoria,     Queen,     visit    to 
Ireland,  92. 

Volunteers,  Irish  (1779),  x, 
xi,  216,  226,  234,  239. 
National,  151-155,  196-198, 
200-203,  209,  212,  219- 
220,  224,  228,  234,  239. 
Ulster.  See  Ulster  Union- 
ist Movement. 

Waterford,  Redmond's  seat 

at,  34,  81,  119,  260. 
Wilson,  President,  267. 
Wyndham,    George,    95,    98, 
99,  102. 

Young  Ireland,  xv,  49,  174. 


[282] 


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